i am very stressed to hear that our neighbor is concerned, and i certainly want to reach out to her. but let me assure you that the health department carefully looks at these applications. as you know, federal law precludes the city from doing anything about cellular towers. we can look at the standards set up by the federal government, and we can determine if these applications meet those standards, but that is all we can do. as the landlord of project open hand, we want to work carefully with our neighbors, and we will certainly reach out to this woman. thank you. president olague: is there additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore: i am glad you came to speak and reach out. it is the way we make decisions. we all have repeatedly mentioned to the board of

supervisors to initiate a study that would address a more forward-looking city wide strategy to provide wireless, comparable to how we are seeing it in european cities. that has not happened. but unless that is done, we're operating with rules that are carefully scrutinized and analyzed and applied. what i would appreciate the department to do, mr. hollister, is to also give the public full explanations about your preference sites. like your preference cites one, two, three, four which pertain to locations where instilling antennas and locating and tennis are preferred over residential buildings were we're getting pushed back. dislike a memo to the public pose -- just like a memo to the public on the website would help all of us to ease concerns. state what the rules are as we are using them, and it would keep us all more informed about

how you are recommending to us. an explanation would help to elevate the discussion. thank you. commissioner antonini: i agree. i think this project meets all the criteria that we have to look at when we are evaluating whether or not to approve, and i am supportive of it. however, although it is not on the subject, the speaker did mention about the absence of pay phones in city hall. it would be nice, you know, if there was one. i mean, not everyone has a cell phone. there are people who might be isolated from communication now that there are no more payphones in many buildings. particularly in public buildings, it would be nice to have a couple. commissioner sugaya: yes, over the break there was, i think it was in the chronicle, there was an article about several

peninsula cities. the city councils, i believe, are now trying to address this same issue. i do not remember what date that was, but maybe a search would reveal who they are. it is about radiation and the impact of the cellular antennas on their cities and to try to address it, i think, by -- i do not the they are trying to influence the federal legislation, but i think they are trying to explore what parameters they have to see if they have more, i guess more approval leeway in some fashion. president olague: and if you can exchange information with your neighbor and have some dialogue with her. as the commissioner of dph, you may be able to explain some of the health impacts and the laws

that govern this whole thing. he is sitting back there. before you leave, you should exchange information. commissioner antonini. >commissioner antonini: move to approve. >> thank you. >> motion for approval. commissioner antonini. >> yes. >> commissioner fong:. commissioner moore. commissioner sugaya. president olague. >> thank you. but these are approved. if you're standing by the door, if you could find a seat in the room, we would appreciate it. if there are no seats, if you could stand on the opposite side of the room so that you do not create a hazard in case of an emergency. thank you. commissioners, we now go back to item number 12, case number 2008.0877itzm.

it is an informational presentation. >> i will take a moment to introduce jim, who will start the presentation on the western so much community plan. as you know, he has been chairing the citizens task force for a number of years and has been working with that task force on this plan for a long time. we're getting closer at the department on completing the eir. i know that has taken as a while. and we're hoping to get that to you by the end of the year, i believe. he has a number of speakers that you're going to be hearing today on a number of aspects of the plan. we have another informational presentation to be given a few weeks from now. i want to also announce paul lord, the department's liaison with the western soma task force. this has been a different

process from our normal community planning process, and he has been heading the community prices for the western soma plan. welcome. >> thank you. jim, chair soma of the chair citizens planning task force. good afternoon, commissioners. the last time we were here to give a formal presentation was, i believe, august of 2008. that is when we brought you the draft for a citizens review. we had promised you when we were formed in it 2005 that we would operate a three-year process. we were right on schedule. we gave you a completed plan, and you voted at the time to send it off to environmental review. now here we are in 2011, and we're still waiting for the results of the eir, meaning that it has taken them longer to do

environmental review that and it took us to write a plan. but we have had plenty of time for the draft for citizens review to sit out there. i do not think there has been a project that has been reviewed so thoroughly by the community as the western soma community plan. and today, we began a series of informational presentations on the plan. let me just briefly give you the context of where western soma came from. going all the way back before the eastern neighborhoods process, the city was in turmoil in the late 1990's with live works sprouting everywhere, a lot of conflict between competing uses, displacement, anchor, people were being dragged out of the planning commission. they were so frustrated with lack of process.

we changed the way we selected our board of supervisors. land use led to the election of district supervisors. if i could have the overhead here, in suffolk market, which bore the brunt of this -- all of the upset that was going on with live works sprouting -- i guess we do not have the overhead here. >> i am not sure what is going on. >> if you can find it, it is just a little display item here. it was right after the election of the board of supervisors, when we began a community process. >> it is on my screen. >> what i have before you here is a notice for the first

community meeting we held in south of market guide in in june of 2001. we had representatives, including jeffrey leibovitz from south park, the show from residential builders association, ms. hester, toby levy, and debra walker, building inspection commissioner. we managed to put that kind of a mixed together. with chris daly, gerald green, and jim merlis. we put all of those people in the same room, and that was the beginning of south of market's community-based process. we love south of market. president olague: if i can interrupt you for just a moment, we cannot have use around the door like that. you create a fire hazard. come to the other side of the room until we can get an

overflow room. thank you. >> we love south of market. south of market is a little bit unlike the other eastern neighborhoods, in that we were rezoned in 1990 in an attempt to recognize the first real mixed use community in san francisco. you'll notice that when soma projects come through here that we have unique zoning categories that you do not find anywhere else in the city. service, a light industrial, residential, slr, sli, which is our industrial production area, and all the neat categories. these are meant to reflect the evolution of south of market from the industrial nature of the community to more of a mixed use. what we love about south of market is that if it is a great place to live, to work, and to play. the eastern neighborhoods process saw to try to do that

with practically a fourth of the city, the entire eastern neighborhoods. we felt, at the time, that we were being lumped in with a lot of it did similar neighborhoods. and i think by this time, just about everybody would agree that the eastern neighborhoods process was too large, to overreaching, and it was not able to really address the problems of the unique neighborhoods. we wanted a plan that was based on the community's vision and its values and on planning principles that we could all agree on. we have just been through a period or housing was being built, were the code said housing did not belong. we had just gone through a period or projects for being approved at this commission that were incompatible with what they were next door to. and we had gone through a period

where a great many of the important small businesses were being displaced at south of market. so we proposed to remove south of market from the eastern neighborhood's process, but we promised in return that we would create our own process that would need all of your standards, and we would write a community plan that would serve the interest of south of market. we're not so bold as to assume that we know much about planning, and we're not so nighties do think that we alone can write a community plan. so we looked to jim deers from seattle. he was the director of the department of neighborhoods for a good many years in seattle. and he established a participatory democratic process up their, were the citizens were

empowered by city governments to learn the nitty gritty of planning. every neighborhood was given a planner. i kind of did the same thing down here. i shopped around all the eastern neighborhood's processes, and i found myself paul lord, who has a unique ability to work with the community. we set out to create a citizen planner. we spend an entire year, 2005, when the task force was first established, and learning the tools and the ins and outs of planning. eastern neighborhoods was a very much a top-down process. the department ran workshops, and they looked for input. the western soma process was a bottom-up process. the community itself was represented on a task force.

we had 26 members in the first place, representing a broad range of stakeholders chosen by the board of supervisors. and we have engaged in as many as five meetings a month since then through a committee structure, through a working group structure, and at regular meetings of the full task force. with me today we have john elberling, task force member who represents the interests of nonprofit developers, director of nonprofit housing, who was involved in the 1990 rezoning of south of market and the current rezoning of south of market, and probably the longest lasting activist and in landry

-- in land use is suit -- issues in south of market. we also have toby levy, my vice chair of the task force, an architect who lives in south of market, who raises a child in south of market, and who has been an activist in south of market going back to the 1990 rezoning as well. tom, director of liveable cities, who was also co-chair of our transportation working group. tom will also present. yes? >> for the people who were not presenting and are standing, we have overflow in room 421. you will be able to follow what happens in this room in room 421. thank you. sorry to interrupt. >> that is fine. so the representative body with

the task force, and we formed a partnership with the city family. paul lord represented the planning department on the task force. chester is the most recent representative of the transportation authority. and megan wier represents the department of public health. the title of the plan we are introducing new to and the whole thinking behind the plan is building a complete neighborhood. the most important principle that we adopted before we began even thinking about the plan was that we want to preserve and enhance what is already here. it is a good neighborhood. it has got a good mix of residences and small businesses, as well as the nightclub industry. so if it is an interesting neighborhood. we do not want to destroy it, but we want to build on that.

the first thing we did in our planning process was we looked at the alleys. that is where people live in south of market. so we have institutionalized the residential enclave districts. when you look at the plane, you'll see that we create a great many more residential enclave districts than what we originally had. that was in the original legislation that created the task force. let's think on the micro level. first, preserve where people live. on a macro level, let's look at the possibilities for further development. we recognize that we have local responsibilities to the people who live there, but we have city-wide and regional responsibilities as well. [bell chimes] you'll also notice that when you look at the zoning categories that are created in the plan. we actually even created a whole

different category of zoning called regional commercial districts. that would be the ninth street and 10th street corridor is which of of a body shops and furniture stores, things that draw people from all over the region into south of market. so we recognize that. folsom street and howard street would become neighborhood- serving streets. harrison street and south of harrison street would reflect the city-wide importance of south of market. preserving jobs was key. eastern neighborhoods kind of got into a pattern of how much housing can we build, and how many jobs are we going to have to lose when we do that? we did not want to do that. so there is a sharp demarcation along harrison street between where we want to increase the housing density to the north and where we want to preserve jobs to the south of that area. and that is reflective of the

previous zoning, and it provides ample opportunity for more housing growth. if we project 3000 to four thousand more units of housing over the course of the next 20 years if the plan is adopted as it currently stands. the plan is built around transportation, something that i am sari tuesday was sorely lacking in the eastern neighborhood's process. -- i am sorry to say was sorely lacking in the eastern neighborhood's process. a fourth of the western soma plan is transportation. before we bring in 3000 more units of housing, we need to take care of basic instincts -- infrastructure issues such as transportation. finally, we introduced the concept of community stabilization. fine, let's grow this neighborhood. let's, you know, take care of

our responsibilities to the city and the region. but let's not destroy what is great about south of market in the process. we will be talking with you at our next gathering about the community stabilization policy. the board of supervisors has already weighed in with an 11-0 vote supporting community stabilization. we have been talking with the director, and i hope next month we can have a community wide meeting to talk about this. and eventually come to a policy that both the planning department, city family, and the community can live with. so that is just my basic outline of where western soma came from and the beginning of this introduction to the process. we're going to have three speakers from the community. and then we will have the 3 presentations from the city family. right now, i would like to introduce john, and thank you

very much for your time. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am john elberling, and i never on affordable housing for over 30 years now. i was very much involved in the 1990 process that led to the current zoning. i would like today to try to present an overview of the strategic thinking of our plan that our community body, our task force, has come up with regarding its economic planning, community building, and social justice. what is really apparent to all of us who have been in south of market throughout this several

decades is that change is inevitable. south of market has changed dramatically from what it was when i first arrived in the 1970's. and of course, so was san francisco. the master plans that were put in place in the 1980's, the downtown plan, the big picture, and the south of market zoning have obviously run in their course. id is apparent to us that any zoning, including our current plan, probably has a shelf life of around 20 years. our city is so dynamic, our neighbor that is so dynamic, that we have to be modest and understand that we can only look at so far. we should not pretend that this is a 50-year plan. that just would not be possible to do. the macro changes and the global economy, the city's economy, our population makes with immigration, domestic and international, of all sorts, all these have really had a huge

impact on western soma, as well as the whole city. in particular, a new generation is arriving in south of market. it is very clear to me as a baby boomer that the next generation has arrived in the city in a very large numbers and are taking a lead now in at the economic development and its political future, as well. and really will be the generation that inherits our work and takes it and makes it real in the neighborhood. i think we need to be very conscious of this generational shift. it is a big change. we cannot assume that what works for us is going to work for them. and we need to really listen to them and take into account. the character of our neighborhood, and on the overhead if you can show if it is the page from the plan that thought was best to look at, and is in your handout.

it really shows the essential physical layout of south of market. it is a hodgepodge. it has properly lots of -- property lots of all shapes and sizes, from the very small to a very big. it has land uses and business activities of everything in the book. all the way from costco down to your 25 by 75 but lot with a few units are a small one-story commercial building. it -- because of our history of change in our population, we have a filipino community. we have a gay-lesbian community. on sixth street next door, we have the sixth street sro community. we have all these people intermixed with each other in what is generally a random fashion. likewise, economically, you find businesses of every nature, shape, and form. some of them very funky, some of

them very high-end. and all the stops and sizes in between. our basic strategic premise that we want to emphasize is that it does that tell diversity, or hodgepodge as i put it, that is the key to our neighborhood's economic success. that is why people want to be here. they do not want to go to a place it is dominated by formula retail or that is the same as in neighborhoods you can find in other major cities around the country on the edge of downtown, by a baseball stadium. they want to come to a neighborhood that is really different and relieve vibrant and has something in one way or another for everybody, all the way from the age of 100 to the age of 18. and to be a part of it. it is very social. obviously, if it is a major focus of the city's entertainment industry.

and this is the drop. the great danger that we have tried in every way we can think of, and paul lord can address the technical details, is to ensure that this diversity does not get overrun because there is an office above all or a condominium bubble or a big box retell bubble. because this is of the development industry works, as you know. when one thing is hot, they want to build it everywhere. every property owner things they can cash in on that bubble and get rich. in the aggregate, if they actually did that, it would destroy the foundation of the neighborhood's prosperity. because south of market is the location where the new technology industry wants to come to san francisco, that would hurt the city's economy as a whole. i really want to emphasize that to you, because it is a key point in our whole plan. so what we've tried to do is to open the door to every kind of

business activity that is reasonably located in this kind of neighborhood. where it might have a compatibility issue, we do use the tools of conditional use. but we open a door to all of it. on the diagram, you'll see the current office uses as serve a few years ago of all kinds. we think of this is good at a modest scale in west soma. not a large scale, but a modest scale. ira plan allows the for the first time, actually. we further simplify the situation. in the code now, you'll find over half a dozen definitions of office, you know, architects, medical, whatever, business services. we treat them all the same. it does not matter exactly what kind of office is. we want to see a variety of the office uses, so we treat them

all as if they are the same thing. and to accommodate the study industry and its need for new class a office space, we do propose one major zoning for office development, and that is a long townsend street, directly opposite the real way -- railway yard. it would provide a buffer. the railyard is an obvious negative facility in our neighborhood. as well as a buffer, it is adjacent to the caltrain station, which is actually the center of the technology industry in the city. so we propose the expansion and new class a offices in the neighborhood, but only there. the one other key factor in this character is the -- established arts communities in south of market. it was the existence of the professional design community

in south park that first drew the technology industry to san francisco when it was multimedia in the 1990's. that is how it has happened. it is in story in a important that non-profit and commercial art can continue in south of market as much as possible. our plan makes parts of all kinds it permitted use everywhere. on community-and building, we have a vision that folsom st. would become a neighborhood shopping district. that is the one element of the traditional residential neighborhood that west soma does not presently have. because our plan provides a very substantial -- for a very substantial increase in the residential population with new housing development, that is an important goal to make it a good neighborhood for the