mindful of open spaces, preserving some light to the open spaces. there are not a lot of open spaces. south of market is basically it. in the north, we have existing open spaces. there are not many park spaces, but there are open spaces, community gardens on the alley south of folsom, school playgrounds which are important on harrison street. to the far west, there is the recreation center, but that as far west. i mentioned to a potential open space. we want to realize this opportunity to create open space and make sure that it is active, but we also want to make sure that it can happen and financially we have the best public benefits to pay for this and make it happen. we will be balancing those

objectives, particularly with the creation of new open space. in terms of historic resources, we've been starting to work with our team, looking at the survey that was completed recently. there are some areas near the existing south than district that are important to expand, to be taken more historic resources. we will be looking at adjustments to height there. also, the zoning and height to reflect the open spaces that are there. maybe if there was redevelopment, we would want to make sure those uses are supported and cared for parr. and important areas around the freeway. at the height limit immediately adjacent to highway 80 have been kept fairly low. a highway in this area is generally not higher than 40

feet. at the height limits have been generally 30, 45 feet. one thing we heard it through the listening faced is we should not be using the height of the freeway to set a benchmark for the building heights immediately adjacent. this is still part of the core of the city, and three-story buildings are not the proper response. another it is we have a lot of large lots in the planned area, particularly in the more southern parts. we've been hearing this for mothers and our own analysis, in terms of work place and that housing mix. that maybe we should look at large lots differently and allow more height flexibility to achieve different mixes of

uses, and also recognize the work place prototype buildings, that we need large lots to make new commercial workplace the element. these are not going to be built on 6000 square foot parcels. we have a lot of large lots, but there are not many, and we need to make sure we target them for workplace developments would not miss opportunities. as we move forward, taking these principles, coming up with scenarios to mesh with the land use in areas, doing 3-d modeling. this is standard protocol, the city just received a 3-d model for the first time in the last two months, and the planning department are the first people to use it. we will probably be the primary

agency to use this information, though the fire department may use it. we had to do a lot of work mapping the existing zoning and getting things like mission that filled out -- mission bay filled out so that we could start mapping the scenarios. these are just some snapshots. we are color coding the buildings. things in red are in the planned area. as we develop scenarios, we will be modeling them and we will see what the defense areas do based on the different forms. that sort of wrap sos up this pt of the presentation. that steps, we have party started spending this month of november intensively taking these principles and putting the pen on the map and sketching

some areas in terms of land use, general land-use controls for different parts of the planned area as well as different heights and areas. we are currently tentatively scheduled for the day after thanksgiving to hold a major public workshop to present these draft ideas, just finalizing our venue. we hope to be announcing that within the next week. we're not going to stop at just holding a single public workshop. we found a meeting with individual groups is also productive, so we will see if we can do more focused meetings with additional groups. we will have a separate workshop on public realm issues. we will take a little longer to develop concepts for streets and open spaces and do that sometime

in january. we hope to synthesize and wrap this up with a draft plan for public review sometime in early spring. since we were here last, the city planning department was toward it -- was awarded a $4000 grant for the ceqa plan. we are fully fund it to move straight through to the ceqa review, so that will get going and the contract will be signed and get going in january. that is some of the background work. we hope to have some of the e.r. are completed by the end of

2013. we hope to have the eir completed by the end of 2013. with that, i would be happy to answer any questions, steve or myself. thank you. president olague: just to let you know, we plan to expand the time for written comments by couple of weeks. >> translated. president olague: oh, i'm sorry. i just wanted to get that out of the way. so we will open this up for public comment. >> good evening, commissioners, my name is sarah. the first thing i wanted to say, i had the pleasure of attending one of the storefront meetings that start at the planning process, and it was incredibly

wonderful, and i wanted to complement the staff on this. it was one of the most pleasant experiences i have had a public meeting. there were people interacting in a really positive way. i wanted to complement the department and staff on that. a couple other things. we're finishing up work on a paper entitled the future of work, where we analyze some of the best places for jobs in the region, and one of the things we found is that the san francisco downtown and the downtown adjacent areas are incredibly important and good places for work. part of that has to do with the fact that over 50% of downtown workers currently take a sustainable mode of transit to get to their jobs. what they were talking to you

about what the intensive nest of development, jobs and transit, is quite shrewd. we are pleased this planning process is going on. we are excited. we look forward to it analyzing the height a little more, but we think this is a nice step in the right direction. thank you. president olague: thank you, is there any additional public comment? >> sue hester. before we get too deep into this, i want to hear some discussion of the soil. this is fill, it is a former marsh in large pieces, and before the planning department starts putting ribbons on a plan, the needs to be a discussion of land failures because we had quite a few of them during a minor earthquake. at some point, we have to put

what is happening in global warming, which is the water table is shifting. we have a lot of saturated land. marshes have problems in an earthquake. they become jelly. we need to not trip out totally on big designs but also basic, what is the land? part of what i am concerned about is the assumption this is a transit-rich area just as the starting point, without understanding how does the transit system work. it is a long haul if you are going latterly, trying to conduct it to go to north street by third street and you are on fixed-rate. -- and you are on fifth street. we have a transit system south of market that does not lend itself to east-west transit. when are we going to resolve

folsom street? we need to be driving these connections, because if you are on a 10th street and you want to get to fourth street, it is a long haul and you have to figure out where the buses are going. if we do not solve the real transit situation south of market and just assume everyone will bicycle, you are being silly. what we really need to do, those transit maps that have the but of a line showing the density of the transit service, how many people and how waffen -- you need to have this rather than the -- you'll need to have that rather than the flat lines. this area deserves attention on both of these issues, and i am asking staff to do the stuff that is the hard stuff, not just a pretty stuffed.

the soil condition, because we will have an earthquake and this will have a jelly-like consistency on the large marches, as well as really tackling the transit because we need it. thank you. >> good evening. my name is jamie route would occur. i just wanted to complement joshua and steve for doing a really good job. i think i was in three community group meetings where they presented an sot feedback, and you guys are leading the city as far as reaching out to the community, having information available on the website, and doing it right. i hope that other departments can learn from you both. president olague: thank you. >> very supportive of this project. president olague: is there additional public comment on

this item? >> my name is aruban santiago. after carefully viewing and reading the current proposal of the height designed for the transbay powetower -- president olague: i am sorry, that is the next item. right now we are on the central corridor. >> oh, ok. president olague: is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i have a question with one of the drawings. the orange line tracking through on a number of streets -- you see that?

south of tehema, west of third street, behind the museum of modern art. is there in orange line? >> there are some crosshatch lines on the map. they represent alleyway improvements, key alleyway improvements identified by the community and various community documents. the plan would support endorsement for which we are not doing specific design, they would be mapped and policy endorsed in the plan, but they are not focus areas for our specific design efforts. commissioner moore: that is important to know. as we are dealing with buildings and projects, it is important to hold them up with the connections. the second question i have, and i may be completely wrong, you were talking about the height

along the freeway corridors. at some point, i was assuming that much of the media parcels on either side of the freeway are owned by caltrans, which means we would not have any ability to discuss that. we had a project a number of months ago. in the context of that, we were discussing that some of these parcels are not even owned by anybody in particular other than caltrans. >> actually, in this area, that is not quite the case. on the block where all of the off ramps are, most of that is owned by caltrans, and there are a couple of lots in between the ramps. on the block between second and fourth, the entire block, those are all privately owned lots, many of which that are under

developed, but caltrans didst not on them. they own immediately underneath the freeway in various buildings, oat but in those areas i don't believe they own. >> if you look at the height map and the packet, you can tell from the parcel delineation, caltrans owns the large green parcels, but east of fourth, those are privately owned along the sides of the freeway. commissioner moore: ok, it is partially correct what i am saying, partially not. ok. generally, this is exciting to talk about and i hope that we will talk about it often and in great depth. m alsos. hester's comments about the soil and water table are very important, and lead of the fact that we have rising sea

levels, which means rising groundwater, and last but not least, the issue of cross traffic, being brought up in almost every project which we are now reviewing the larger areas from the eastern neighborhoods towards your area. i think that becomes important. i believe the issue shouldn't fall vote a discussion with sfmta so we go further than just the transit corridor. we need all of the connections east-west to create a framework, which makes sense. thanks. president olague: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: thank you for a very good job. i am glad the out which is being expanded beyond the area, to all

san franciscans and all people interested in what we are doing. the important points that were made about the studies that were done. this is more susceptible than people having to travel from transit to work. i think that we are doing an excellent job in planning because historically the area south was always the industrial area and housing that related to the industrial area. of course, that has changed. we have new thinking. this is the perfect link from downtown to mission bay.

we're having challenges and this is a link between civic center, the downtown area, the retail area and we have to make sure that we do have a good job of lincoln is between the development in the downtown area. there is the importance of establishing where the bed rockets and making sure that we do whatever we can to anchor our construction into something that will move and transit is another important thing. i think that towns and street, 16th street, this is going further than cesar chavez. when you are leaving the station and you want to go to western san francisco, you will not want

to take transit or go all the way back up to market so you can go the other direction. you cut the corner on townsend st. and that brings you to church and market. the same with 16th street from mission bay eventually bringing you to the mission district. those are important things to focus on for either light rail or some kind of transit that moves people quickly across those areas. that may take a while to develop. >> this is a great document and quite exciting and i am very encouraged to hear about you looking.

i think that is very important. this is working in a tech company. when i talk to people, the kind of office space that they want is not high rise. it is really exciting that we are looking in the direction for opportunity and that corridor to embrace that. i imagine that this would be covered in the eir. i will be looking forward with great interest. that is where we will honor our information. i imagine but has muni been involved in this plan process? >> yes, they have.

this is from the sustainable streets and transit division and they have been participating. "no this came up a couple of times. where is that project? >> there is the plan which i believe is in the later stages of wrapping up their concepts. i believe they are looking for environmental review funding. the boundary of their concept only goes as far east as six street. and there is the two way portion east of our development area. we are sort of in the middle. we are grappling on how to resolve that in terms of our plan. we might not do detailed design

for folsom. we will see what we can add it to the discussion. >> thank you. commissioner sugaya. >> what is the thinking along fourth? think two-lane streets? >> the central subway plan is that it would stay one way through the freeway at harrison street. >> secondly, you have had some discussions and presentations before public health about the development measurement tool and the use along freeways especially. i think that they have done some mapping along the freeway corridor.

>> in the condition assessment, we did a page on air quality issues and we included pages from the epa. our technical advisory committees are interested in playing -- in discussing these issues. it is important that this entire planning area shows up read on these maps because the existing service streets carry large volumes of traffic. this triggered the threshold that had been set in terms of the commission and so forth. >> as long as we have them involved. >> yes. >> this is a great start to the planning process.

a lot people came. there was a lot of substantive interaction with the community members. the other thing that is interesting to me about this project is that it is creating a different workplace and a diversity of workplace environments. there is an interest in allowing the uses. this lets it mix it up in terms of mixing it up and we think that that is more interesting to the folks that want to move into the city. this is a very different type of environment and frankly a different environment. i think that those factors are creating an interesting planning process. >> does this already exist for

would be adapted to use? >> there are plenty of industrial uses there already. all of those are on a repair, others that we think are necessary in this transit rich area. we have been working with the staff and other people who are following industrial closely to make sure that they are satisfied with the plans. this is not the core pr area. this is about supporting that would be allowed but not necessarily promoting by requiring it to be explored. >> what areas more or less? >> all of it. this is a loud anyway. they are there already.

this allows the industrial speed. we have these uses that some play well together, some don't play well together. >> when you spoke with some of the nonprofit groups, did any of them raise concerns about the office space, the pressures that might be placed on the nonprofit due to the appeal of the area? >> that did not come up. that specific issue but certainly a thousand others did come up. we provide more space, we're hoping to leave the pressure.

we also have this giant economic activity. we want to put it in the right place. >> there is always this rhetoric that are -- that we are relieving pressure. >> this was permitted everywhere and now we have created a different dynamic. >> that's great. i really like what i see so far. >> the community, at least the folks we have talked to, seem to think that office uses are less gentrifying than market rate residence. they are more supportive of office uses industry shirt than market rate housing. >> they were starting to do some thinking around this.

i was wondering if you have any of that. "yes, they work with that group of students before we started this bunning effort and we developed some policy ideas. we talked about the direction we are heading. these are the policy recommendations and we have not had any conflicts to date. we are heading in the same direction. >> i would be curious to see what they're thinking. >> we would forward it to you, if you like. >> that would be great. this was something that we really did embrace the idea of office use and kind of where you are going with it.