offered in exchange for any special conditions this particular project asked for? if that would be the case, we would look at this project differently. if this building was within zoning and no variances or special conditions, i would look at it differently than if the project had special conditions approved in exchange for adding these units. and i please ask that we at least ask that question. i'm not vindictive. i understand the predicament the owners are in, but if you want to have full disclosure, then even 12 years later as a commission, we should be apprised of that fact. president olague: i just wanted to -- i mean, i know that you obviously aren't going to make the motion or -- to continue. i know that was part of the previous conversation. so i'm not sure where this conversations going at this point. but i do think that if this

recommendation is somehow related to palmer and we do have in this project description that the project dedicated 17 units, then when we do have an opportunity to speak more about this subject and how palmer affects some of these previous decisions, i would like to understand how that word does or does not have an influence on a legal -- the legal defenseibility of the decision in favor -- defense ability of the decision in favor of this or not of this type of project. i think a lot of people are suffering from fatigue around a lot of these projects. sometimes they're controversial, sometimes not, come before us.

there's a lot of negotiation that goes on on the public's side, the city's side. then there's a later effort to change something about the conditions of approval that were based on years of input from a lot of different interested parties. so i think now there's this -- i don't know if the word is sustain petition, but maybe it is, that, you -- suspicion, but maybe it is, that people want guarantees that when they engage in these dialogues and these conversations with development community and the city and planning department, that there are some guarantees that -- a lot of projects are approved based on certain conditions that are fully vetted by a number of different interested parties. so i think that right now people are just feeling a certain level of suspicion based on these types of court

cases that -- you know, within one decision, change the course of a project. so i look forward to this conversation with the city attorney. and at some point, maybe we need to figure out a way to have that conversation with the public as well. i don't know. how that would look. i think the public deserves to be informed of it also and engaged in this conversation. president olague: commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: thank you. a few things in response to some of the questions. this, of course, the haze and the approval of the haze, which is now known as the haze, predates any c.a.c. that was connected with it by quite a bit. so that, i don't think, is a factor on this, because, you know -- and the other thing is that what may be being lost here is the fact that we're still talking about affordable units. i would feel differently if

they were saying, well, we want to change these and sell them as market-rate units. we want to go against our earlier agreement. what they're doing is they're changing the form of whether they're rental or not, because it probably makes it more possible to make the project a success. and that makes sense to me. and the mayor's office of housing is supportive of this, from what i understand. and just to answer commissioner moore's question, could i ask project sponsor a question, just for a second here? i assume you've made efforts to rent these units. it's been a long time. it's been built for like four or five years. >> t.c.l. and march of 2008. we have not actually made any efforts to rent the units. >> because? >> mostly to figure out this issue. the original sponsor who entitled the project, he actually sold the development to a condominium developer and

then purchased back the b.m.r. units as well as the retail in the project, with the intent of eventually changing them to condos and selling them. and he was worried if he ever did rent them he would displace the tenants and trade a bigger problem. commissioner antonini: i can see the problem. and also, the retail spaces are still -- many of them are vacant. i'm not saying they're all vacant. >> they are. commissioner antonini: it's difficult. so it's a project that needs as much help as we can give it, particularly in a struggling economy. so thank you for your comments. and i'm going to move to approve. >> second. president olague: commissioner miguel? commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: sorry i was late. have we established that even though it was voluntary, it can't be enforced?

>> he thinks not, but they're not sure. >> commissioners, motion on the floor is for approval as proposed. on that knows, commissioner ants nene? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner fong? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> no. >> commissioner sugaya? >> no. >> commissioner miguel? >> aye. >> commissioner olague? >> no. >> that motion passes on a 4-3 vote with commissioners moore, sugaya and olague voting against. thank you, commissioners. commissioners, you are now on item number seven, consideration of adoption draft minutes from special meeting on april 21 and your regular meeting on april 28, 2011. following any public comment and any modifications or changes you may have, we do have that -- ask that you approve the draft minutes. president olague: any public

comment on this item? seeing none, public comments is closed. commissioner miguel. vice-president miguel: move to approve the minutes of the special meeting of april 21 and the regular meeting of april 28. >> second. >> commissioners, on the moogs for approval. commissioner ants nene? >> aye. >> missioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner fong? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya? >> aye. >> commissioner miguel? >> aye. >> commissioner o'lag yay? >> aye. >> the minutes are approved. any other commission matters? president olague: commissioner miguel. vice-president miguel: yes, during the week i met with people regarding 401 grove, pier 70, 55 laguna, and also with at&t, and i would like to point out that the american society of landscape architects, northern california chapter, has awarded the mission district streetscape plan, their 2011 merit award.

david allen ballgame and that team should be -- allenabugh and their team should be congratulated, and in addition, this would not have happened in normal circumstances. the plan wouldn't have even started under normal circumstances, because this is the type of planning -- long-range planning basically that is normally funded through the general fund. and there literally isn't any general fund. and this was because of the department being able to secure grants to do the work. so the department deserves -- allocates on both counts. president olague: commissioner borden. commissioner borden: a couple of things. a little nitpicky thing about the website. when you go to the website it says click on this week's agendas and it takes you to all

the different weeks. it would be easier if we can go directly to the agendas for that week. it's really annoying. that's how i check my agendas, because it usually changes. so that's number one. number two, i know a member of the public is going to talk about this in public comment and it reminds me of last week. but i would love to have a conversation about the protocol for inform smfing the d.r. requesters, or people in opposition to a project, making sure that they know in a timely manner if they want to submit things when their deadline is and how many packets they need to provide and how much advance notice that they can get. i understand that sometimes dates change and the department's working primarily with the project sponsor. but to the extent possible, if we can get to people we know who have been vocal -- we're not saying that people have not identified themselves as being related to a project must be notified. but at least for those people who have been identified to be interested in the project, to get notice about deadlines for submitting materials in

particular. i think it would be very useful and would prevent continuances and a lot of strife that people feel their issues are not heard adequately. so that is my other thing. and finally, i think that in terms of the last item, i think it would be useful after our closed session to have an open session to talk about the issues around palmer. and i know that there's a hesitancy with legal opinions to release them broadly, because you don't want to release legal strategy. you want to protect the city against liability. but i think that in some cases we have to kind of come down on a position and let the public know, so the public knows how to react and behave and pursue other legal action if they want. but i think it's important that we -- that the public knows what the city's position is generally on the various laws that are passed down to the extent that it doesn't expose our legal strategy should we have to go to court, i guess.

>> commissioner antonini? >> thank you. i did have a meeting this week with leaders and residents in my office, and we talked about a couple of issues, one of which was a project which is on the calendar for today but has been continued, and that's 2055 lombard. but also, a lengthy discussion about another project that will be coming before us in the future, it is my understanding, and that's edward 2rrks which is a bed-and-breakfast at scott and lombard, i think. i forget the cross street. it's another issue surrounding emancipated foster youth. but they raised a lot of very serious concerns that were different than was the case with earlier projects at 800 presidio that we had heard. so i think this is something we have to look at very closely. i know it's on our calendar, i

believe, but i will want to have some answers before we hear that to some of these questions. president olague: commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: on the website for me, i think it would be adequate if you just reversed the orders of the agendas and the years starting from 2011 and go down. but the agendas start in january and go down. so if you flipped it, it might be -- president olague: is that all? [laughter] i also met with representatives of 55 laguna this week and at&t representatives as well. i met with some seniors from the -- which district would this be? district five, but mostly the western edition and it was really interesting. the issue of the census came up and the increasing numbers of

seniors that were going to be seen here in san francisco. so a lot of issues concerning their quality of life were raised. and i met with some youth from the south of market also, who raised issues that they are concerned about as it relates to housing and other issues of low income and homeless youth. finally, this morning i attended the preview, i guess, or presentation on the expansion of the moma, and that was really fun. so it's pretty exciting, really. and i guess we'll be hearing from them on the 23rd of june. so it's just kind of nice to have something really positive going on in the city, because sometimes when we're here we forget that there are really some amazing things that are going on. that happens to be one of them, i think. so it was a good, positive presentation. so something to look forward to.

commissioner borden. commissioner borden: i did have one more question. i know that supervisor wiener is working on legislation dealing with the mobile food cart issue, moving it from the interior of the parks to kinds of like a pad that's going to be built kind of more on the exterior parts, and i wanted to know if that would be something that would come to us or something that we would look at. because i know -- if it's still part of the public space but then it's starting to get into the public realm, i wondered if it's something that we would look at, particularly because it has to do with -- also with our eating and drinking steakts in the neighborhood and all this other stuff. >> at noint i'm not familiar with that legislation, but i can look night and i can describe it next week and you can let me know if you want to hear it at a commission meeting later. >> thank you, commissioners. if we can move forward to

drrgs' reports and a review of the past week's avents, board of supervisors, board of appeals and historic preservation commission. >> thank you, commissioners, good afternoon. i wanted to report on some recent meetings. last night was the community meeting on the show place square historic survey. there were, i think, maybe 25 people in attendance. we had a somewhat lively discussion that is scheduled to go to the hillstoric preservation meeting next week at their june 1 meeting for their consideration of adroppings of that survey. two days ago there was the second of two meetings on the better market street project. this one was at the whitcomb hotel under the department of public works, that we are working very closely with them on to redesign market street. there were about 100 people in attendance at this meeting. it was a good crowd, a good discussion. and that project is completing its first phase, which is kind of analysis of existing

conditions and looking at best practices of other cities. the next couple of months we'll move into the phase of ideas for the future of market street. and i also wanted to let you know that i convened a meeting this week. i think i mentioned last time with the wireless providers as well as the city's department of technology, the city attorney's office and staff about this issue of the wireless facilities and the possibility or the potential looking at some sort of larger plan or context for those facilities. we had a good discussion. we're pulling together some notes and some ideas from that meeting, and i will reconvene that group in a few weeks to talk about what we think we could be doing in that regard. and what a potential plan might look like, might cost, what the scope of that might be. and i just wanted to also thank commissioner miguel for his comments about the mission streetscape plan. you're right, that that plan

would not have been possible without grant, because those types of projects are no longer funneleded through the city's general fund. and so i appreciate your comments and i want to congratulate staff for winning the third award in the last month on our project. we're really pleased about that. thank you. president olague: commissioner miguel. vice-president miguel: yes, i forgot to mention i was in attendance at the hotel for market street. it was extremely well attended. much more than i thought it would be. there was a good 100 people there. and they all participated heavily in a very interactive workshop. one of the lead people from d.p.w., mindy luwinski, who i worked with before, had been in charge of all the b.p.t.'s work for the rebuild and redo of all the branch library.

so she's very, very attuned to public interaction, working with neighborhoods and really is extremely efficient in getting jobs done. i was very pleased to see her and the entire team there. a great deal of cooperation. and, as i say, for our workshop on something as vast as the market street from the embarcadero block area, there was a tremendous amount of participation. president olague: commissioner sugaya. commissioner sugaya: yes. the doctor's comment on wireless, was there a discussion on your meeting? i don't know if it was a secret meeting or what, but -- [laughter] i've been led to understand that the city has a vast amount of unused fiber optics, fiber cable underground. did that subject ever come up? >> no, it didn't.

i don't know. i have not heard that before. i'll certainly talk to the directors of the technology department to find out, but i'm not familiar with that. >> the organization and the mission are -- >> it's not on your calendar. >> i'll finds out. >> well, someone i know who used to work for the i.t. people said there's a whole lot of unused cable underneath the ground, that the city owns, not private carriers. president olague: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: in regards to the meeting at the whitcomb hotel, i assume that the issue of the position of the trees came up during that. that was an issue that has been discussed from some people in that they're not really uniform, they sort of bounce in different positions and make -- whether something can be done to correct that in the future. >> this is very early on. we're not at that level of focus. commissioner antonini: ok, thank you.

president olague: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i will give you your weekly report on the activities of the board of supervisors as they pertain to planning and land use. this week the land use committee had a special meeting on the morning of tuesday to consider parkmerced. at that hearing the board president, david chiu, introduced a package of amendments that were intended to strengthen the rent-control provisions of this agreement. the highlights include providing tenants themselves to become a third-party beneficiary of the agreement, and they would be explicitly vested and given rights to bring legal action over enforcement of the agreement. two, instituting explicit financial penalty that would be about $192 million if the developer challenges the provisions of rents control in court. the proceeds of which would be used to subsidize the rents of relocated tenants. three, designating certain blocks of the existing garden apartments to remain until the last phase of development,

which is expected to be over a period of about 20 years. requiring the developer to allow a group of relocating tenants to collectively move to the same block of new housing if they wish to stay together as a mini--neighborhood. and an amendment to the design standards and guidelines document was also adopted that would eliminate the organic farm and replace it with an additional sports field. so these amendments were all adopted and the committee forwarded the items to the full board without recommendation by a vote of 2-1. the same afternoon the full board voted to uphold the certification of the seir on first reading and to approve all actions associated with the project by a 6-5 vote. the project would go before the m.t.a. board and the p.u.c. commission in june for the agencies to ratify their respective portions of the agreement. we had three appeals at the board this week, so that was -- that included the first appeal.

the second was the at&t light speed appeal. this item was continued without discussion by the request of supervisor wiener. the board approved a five-week continuance. and supervisor wiener introduced a hearing request on d.p.w.'s order concerning the excavation permits for the installation of what they call the surface-mounted facilities, which are the same things that were under appeal. specifically, the supervisor wanted the hearing to be a discussion with public works, city planning department, the sfmta and the p.u.c. on the extent to which this executive order complies with the general plan and the better streets plan. so that will happen later in june is the tentative schedule for that. and the third appeal that was before the board was an appeal of 1787 union street, also known as the brickyard. neighbors allege that it shouldn't have been issued due to an significant impact from

noise. further, they allege that department staff and the commission and the project sponsor acknowledged the impact by using certain secret terms during the d.r. review. the word impact and mitigation was cited during their testimony. at the hearing the department countered that the two sound readings by the entertainment commissioners inspector demonstrated there was no significant impact from the project and countering the appellant's argument that the conditions of approval to address mitigation -- hold on. who wrote my report today? it wasn't me. [laughter] so in counter to their argument that mitigations were mitigations under ceqa, the department said the commission was applying conditions above and beyond ceqa to address these concerns that were sound. the board agreed and up held the action unanimously.

so the hearing request from supervisor wiener was the only new introduction that i wanted to share, and that concludes the board report. president olague: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. scott sanchez with your board of appeals report. the board heard two items that night. the first is a notice of violation and penalty for 3506 16th street. this is ike's place. so the board heard the item just to consider a reduction in the penalty amount. they had accrued 48 days worth of penalties at $250 a day for $12,000 total. the board ultimately reduced that, finding that it would have been a hardship for them to close because of the number of people which they employed. they reduced it to $150 a day for $7,200 total. the second tight elm is 161-165 newman street. a variance decision for a property in r.h.q. a variance request to allow the

subdivision the property. the property would have had variances for lot size, for rear yard and also for usable open space, and this is actually the first appeal of a variance that of heard before the board of appeals. i denied the requested variances because i found that there was not a hoirp in this matter -- hardship in this matter. the property was developed with two separate buildings, one in fronts and one in the rear. the one in the rear was developed in 1907 and the one in the front 1998 to 2000 and they maximized at that time using the current configuration of the lot then subdividing it out resulted in really the variances for year yard and usable open space, which, had they developed or done the subdivision back in 1998, this would have resulted on a smaller building for the building in front. they wouldn't have been able to maximize the development. so i felt this was inappropriate. that the development should have occurred with the

development first and then in the front of the property. the board of appeals found that there was some pattern in the neighborhood of smaller lots and decided to over turn my denial of the variance. it was a 4-1 vote, but i did get the president of the board of appeals to vote for our position. and i'm available for any questions. president buell: thank you. -- troip thank you. >> the historic preservation commission did not meet this week. you now have general comment that has ha 15-month duration. at this time the members of the public may address you on items of interest to the public. they fall within the subject matter jurisdiction of the planning commission. with the exception of agendas items. they may only be addressed at the time they're reached on calendar and may not be addressed during this category. each member of the public may address you for up to three minutes, keeping in minds that entire category has a 15-minute time limit.

president olague: we have one speaker card. patricia voy. commissioner moore: i need a technicality on this before we start this comment. i'm talking about the pro jess. nothing to do with the project of item up in 17. and the planner told one of the neighbors -- wait a minute, linda -- that you guys were going to throw these files out and she needed to copy it. this lady's on fixed income. if anybody can leave the files back with linda or with the planner, we'd appreciate it, because she doesn't have a lot of money, thank you. president olague: tom rid uvolic.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. executive director of livable city. i'm actually here to talk about the way the city does transportation analysis. and we had met with the developers of the parkmoor project to talk to the city's problem with analysis. when we met with the developers, they had proposed some transportation mitigation, things like transit passes and so on. they also have a terrific amount of parking in that project. a very high level of parking. on -- especially for the nonresidential uses. very much higher than you do in a transquarter. but because of the way the department models transportation, what happens is if a project sponsor is being responsible and doing everything they can to mitigate the amount of traffic that they generate, say they were to give transit passes to every resident or unbundle the parking or lower the amount of commercial parking or provide shuttles, doing all these

things, some of which they said we're doing, what happens is when you do the ceqa modeling, per the city's standards, the number of auto trips generated doesn't come down. conversely if you add more parking, it doesn't go up. so what happened was the parkmoore developer, because also in the city's transportation code, they tend to favor automobile level of service over bicycle or pedestrian or other form of access. what the developer was required to do through ceqa as a mitigation is to widen 19th avenue. by one lane. which is ridiculous. the developer doesn't want to do it. it's terrible policy. it presents a barrier to pedestrians moving through the site. if the developer manages to keep their transportation and we said you should take that out as a mitigation, you have to do it. maybe we just say you do all the transportation management stuff you can do. if you reach a congestion threshold then you have to do it. if you don't hit that threshold ever, and manage the concon