small units in the city. we have plenty of old, barely functional small units which are often a problem. we're better off fixed up, retrofitted kamal larger units that are safe for families. we're better off with them that way. it is not a wholesale approval we're talking about. we're talking -- not talking about some big policy where everyone can go out and emerge in its for purposes of sale and a bunch of other things. it is one unit, one family and it will serve four other families in the future. commissioner borden: there is a movement among the rest of us to have an alternate. i do not know of icahn -- if i can. >> you need to -- commissioner borden: have this motion failed first?

the motion i i would like to make is we take d.r. and approve. this project can go forward. upon the time that they are selling, it would be represented as rh2. the building would remain rh2. >> the need to allow his motion to go forward. >> let's vote. president miguel: let's boad on the original motion. >> to approve my understanding is that it is a bow to approve the d.r. request. commissioner antonini: make it

possible by that to happen by a future owner but not have that required. >> is that -- commissioner antonini: that is pretty much it. >> if there is no further discussion, on the motion -- to not take d.r. and approve the project as proposed with the urging of the current project sponsors to turn the building back into two units at some future need and urging. not a requirement, and urging. on that motion -- commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner borden: no. commissioner fong: aye. commissioner moore: no. president miguel: no. >> that motion fails. commissioner borden: i make a

subsequent motion to take d.r., approved the project, and any future owner would have to -- you want to say something? >> if you're going to classify this as rh2 it would be tantamount to a rezone. commissioner borden: in the building as it is represented in the zoning maps carried out on the sale, anybody who buys the property realizes that it is representative of two units. i am saying the designation of the law would be -- >> if the current owners decide that their daughter moves off and want to turn it back into two units, doesn't have to come through the process or can they just do it? commissioner borden: that is

what i'm trying to figure out. is it not possible to make a motion where it is automatically rh2 where they would not have to come back a second time to make it rh2? that is what i want to do. he would not have to make a unification to divide the units again. i'm not talking about the zoning, i'm talking about the -- when a property is listed, it says it is a separate dwelling unit or not a separate dwelling unit. my point is that, if we take d.r. and do it as it is, it is a process for them to change it back to two separate units. president miguel: that is all we have to say. commissioner borden: in the other case, i think that is what we did. president miguel: that was the

condo one. commissioner moore: with the exclusive understanding that they could use it as one and would continue to pay taxes for two the properties. that was the situation. commissioner antonini: i would suggest, if i may, that we take d.r., allowed the project to proceed as designed with the nsr that at such time as it is sold, the wall in which they are putting a door be restored. >> second. commissioner borden: he cannot make that motion. commissioner antonini: i am suggesting that if someone would make that motion. >> we had a motion from

commissioner borden. commissioner borden: i will modify my motion to reflect what the chair presented. >> i want to be clear. we want to make sure that the record going for it reflects this as a single-family home after your action if you do improve the merger. for the record, that is extremely important. you may have the power to do what you are asking, but i do believe that conditioning the division of this property again, as you are saying, commissioner miguel, may not be appropriate. there may be a process to split this up again. from the owner's perspective, that would be preferable to the extent that a new owner or this owner wants to go back and put a new unit in. going through the process is

probably required and would probably be ok with my client. being required to make an alteration without notice as part of a sale transaction i do not think is appropriate, with all due respect. president miguel: commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: he makes a good point. when it is merged, it is a single unit, a single address, and that is how it is. if we put some sort of nsr on here, which i am not sure if we can do, but if the -- and if the commission wants to try, i will vote against it anyway, but i think we are going iection and t more time on this than it deserves. we should allow people to take care of their own property and do what they want to do with their homes. that is one of our problems in san francisco. we are too involved in dictating

personal choices on things that involve them. i do not like this type of thing. that is the way it is. whatever the commission votes, that will be the decision. commissioner borden: there are several things -- we have a housing element and that is what we have in our housing element that you voted for. this property is zoned rh3. if, every time have a proud sponsor, we decide that the housing element does not matter and we should not do it this way, there is something special that they are asking for that is not code compliant. it is not like we are just making people do something. it is there -- if they're genuine interest is to unify their family, we are saying they can do that. we are not stopping them. if that is there any game, we are saying, full speed ahead, we support that. we are also saying we do not

want it to be a dwelling units for the future. toomey, the best way to balance the issues that we have, who knows? in the future, in the housing element might be totally different so it might not matter of. but today, it is a slippery slope. if you make that decision in this case, the floodgates open of all the people who were denied before or all the people want to change something. if we were talking about rh3 going down to two units, that would be one thing. we are talking about a situation where we are going from a block that is rh3, they forgot -- the predominant houses in the unit are three-unit buildings. it will go down to a one-unit building. i am try to accommodate their interest and respect the housing

element in a way to apply what we assessed should be the law of the lead for san francisco. i'm not saying it is perfect or ideal, but we have credibility here because of what is actually the case. that is why staff recommended disapproval. with many other cases, the staff does not recommend approval. but this one is unique. i have nothing wrong with this family. i am doing what i feel like is the best thing to protect your interest in terms of this is what you said you want to do. i recognize that down the road, he might not be the best thing for you, but it is the motivation of unifying the family. we are saying we are blessing you to do that. commissioner moore: perhaps this would require a discussion with the city attorney in terms of what commissioner borden just described is appropriate to capture that.

i do not think the zoning administrator -- we can find it. i appreciate commissioner borden summarizing what she just did. i do reflect that we have been holding pretty steadfast on not approving dwelling mergers except for one case, where there telling you to emphasize with -- to empathize with us at pacific heights, which has 19 rooms. each of these are occupied by individuals, each with a fireplace. and the owner, an old italian family, came and asked that we allow for this large building to be redesigned for six units. we were going from 19 to 6. that is what we decided to do. we did not go from 19 to one, which would have been a great idea. the house would have been a

fabulous mansion. the owner accepted our decision based on all of the things that we are talking to. in these 19 units, for many years, excuse me for taking a minute on this, were occupied by those people who rendered a larger room. many of them had to move because we approved the merger of some of these rooms into another unit. we have been very clear on how the intent for planning to guide us wisely through the struggles of rentals, affordable housing in this city, it is an extremely difficult decision. i think that what you were summarizing is the best of what i can support. i feel i need the city attorney

to sit here with us. i respect your judgment and council, but we need the city attorney to advise us on this matter. perhaps we need to wait. i would like to support you, but i have not found the right conditions to express what we are after. commissioner antonini: i have been through too housing elements and i have read them extensively. i think there are provisions on both sides to this. one element talks about providing family-sized housing, which is extremely important, and the other is to preserve rental housing. sometimes you are crossing things. either way, you are right. this is a situation where, in my opinion, we have a lot of rental housing, about two-thirds of the housing in san francisco. we probably have a shortage of family-sized housing.

i would air to the side of providing family-sized housing. i think we are perfectly consistent with the housing element. i do not agree with the bases for recommendation that says the preferred merger would not help to achieve the goal of retaining families in family-size housing. i think it would. every family is different. there are families that need more space as we have heard today. i am perfectly fine with my original motion in allowing this thing to go for. did you want to add something about the zoning? there was a question about whether it was rh2 or rh3. >> thank you for calling me back to the podium. i did not want to raise that. i did want to work something out with commissioner borden. we know where you're coming from. there may be a vehicle here. i think the procedural issue maybe that requiring the building be returned to two

units, it is a two-unit building now, and if you were to grant our request, it would be reflected as a one-unit building. if there were a request to change it back later, none of you might be sitting here and it might be denied. my clients might be willing to consider a fine for a dwelling unit split. that would encourage maintaining the irreversibility of this to the extent that you look at the plants now and commissioner miguel was right. all you have to do is take out the door and replace the wall and you have two units again. this is not a major remodel. this is a simple, new building permit that would go through a process and we might be here in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, having this discussion. none of you will be here.

the bottom line is, i think and nsr that might require an application and processing that, if it is denied through no fault of the owners, i am not sure the owner can be faulted by the fact that the city or the commission or some other role came along that did not allow us to split the building into two units again. is that fair? commissioner borden: if that is the case, it is not worse off for your client. >> it requires the filing of an application and diligently pursuing a two-unit building and it stops there. we cannot be put into a position where it is an impossibility. commissioner borden: would you rather have language -- >> i think we can deal with anty owner would be notified of the

fact that -- or the new owner would agree to or start the process of trying to create the second unit again if that process was successful. if the city denied the permit, the owner has no ability to reverse that. commissioner borden: we were not saying that they had to do something that was not going to be legally possible. we were assuming that, in the future, that would be fine. the preference is to see, and we think our housing policy will be in that direction in the future. >> i think that would work fine with us with that kind of a condition where the process would be started and if it is completed, great, but we would definitely agree to that. thank you. commissioner antonini: i agree that we cannot foresee the future and perhaps we would have

a commission with different policies. hopefully they would say you made the application, but we would rather keep it as one unit. it could happen. that is all we can do it as far as trying to do that. commissioner fong: we are going into hour 9. i have got to be realistic. this adds to the frustration. now i understand why labor laws stop at 8:00. it is double time after that. i would like to try to get a resolution for this tonight. i do not know of someone on this commission could repeat that motion. commissioner borden: my substitute motion is that we would record an nsr at the property that at the point of sale, the process would begin to

undo the merger. commissioner antonini: may i request that the final wording of that is reviewed by the city attorney? commissioner borden: right. put the nsr and the final wording would be reviewed by the city attorney. commissioner fong: i think that is a much better solution. i'm going to vote against it anyway, but one way or another it will go through. >> second. >> commissioners, the motion on the floor is to take discretionary review on the project proposed, requiring that the current owners record and nsr that, at the time of sale, the process be started to unmerge the unit.

on that motion -- commissioner antonini: no. commissioner borden: aye. commissioner fong: aye. commissioner moore: aye. president miguel: aye. >> that motion passes for-1. commissioner antonini voting against. thank you, commissioners. you are now at general public comment. in president miguel: is there any general public comment on items that have not an agenda is? seeing none, public comment is closed and this hearing is finally over.

>> good morning, everyone. i am one of the founders of foundersne end. this is a space for more entrepreneurs, technology and innovation. supporting it is near and dear to our heart. we are happy to welcome ron and mayor lee here. founders and that is almost one year old. we have had 40 companies come through here to raise over $40 million in venture-capital. without further ado, i want to introduce you to one of our most preeminent angel investors, ron conaway. [applause] >> thank you and welcome. for those of you who do not know me, i am a third-generation san

francisco and, for better or for worse. it was a decision my parents made in high school to move to atherton. i ended up staying there until three years ago and have been active in civic activities ever since. it is important to be involved in civic and philanthropic activities. my day job -- and i am still very active in this job -- as an angel investor investing in bay area companies when they are what we call babies. these are start-ups that have two or three people, and sv angels funds those start-ups. one of the starters -- smartest decisions i made was only to invest in internet and software. we have invested in over 600 companies, many of them in the

city of san francisco. for sure, today, we have set a record for any city in the country that has rallied and united the tech community to support collective, civic action. this never happened before. we are in the perfect storm with the election of mayor ed lee, to make this happen and to accomplish a lot. ed lee, as interim mayor, stepped up for the tech community, he kept twitter in san francisco, got private stock option tech abolished, with the help of david chiu, and convened last april the ad hoc council, which i know he plans to reconvene as mayor. it was not easy to get ed lee to run for mayor. warren hellman and myself, and i

know dianne feinstein and mayer brown as well, helped convince the end lead to run. it is one of the best meetings that warren and i have had, when we sat in his office for one hour, and we felt like we meant some headway, and we must have, because he is here. it is not a coincidence -- it is a coincidence, that the tech community it is following the example that warren hellman has set for this community. warren hellman and i were very close friends, and i think upstairs right now, he has a huge smile on his face. he cared as much about san francisco as any of us. he loved the tech community. a majority of his investments were in tech.

he really gets what we are trying to do, and we should advance his cause of civic engagement. after ed decided to run, the tech community rallied around him. in an effort today, not to lose any of them momentum, we are forming this organization called sf citi. we do not want to lose the momentum for the tech agenda in san francisco, and we think this is an exciting day for us. we heard from ed in his neck inauguration when he declared san francisco the innovation capital of the world, and that is the charter that sf citi wants to but -- promote. his inauguration speech was not just a speech, but a call for

action, and the tech community is responding today, less than one week after he gave that speech. we represent the new economy in san francisco, and with this partnership, we hope to create thousands of new jobs. that will be our first quarter. -- charter. we witnessed mayor ed delete during his inauguration be the first elected official as far as we know who ever treated during their inauguration. not only did he tweet, he tweeted an infographic. a couple of people stayed up all night creating this, and guess what, it is all about jobs. both of them are here, and we want to thank them. [applause] before i tell me more about s.f.

citi, i want to introduce our elected officials here. scott wiener, mark farrell, david chiu, the president of the board of supervisors, and christina olague, our newest supervisor. [applause] jane kim is here. awesome. we are in jane kim's district. jane and zynga have been the forbearers of the jobs issue, raising our consciousness about that. ed lee adopting that as well. there is somebody in the room, if we could of educated him fast enough, we could have had him stand here instead of me because he is the best speaker i have met. where is mayer brown? [applause]

-- mayor brown? [applause] if you were at the dinner last saturday or the inauguration, he can be a stand-up. ed lee announced jay knapf as the chief innovation officer. he is the chief innovation officer, but his nickname is chief heck officer. because we are going to adopt a charter to create jobs in san francisco, we want to think back to where jobs really originate, where people start their work ethic, and that is in grade school. we are to partner with community organizations in san francisco, and we have with us today chuck

collins from the ymca, robert connolly from the boys and girls club, and eric mcdonald from united way. as we grow, we will put in a structured programs to give kids a path to employment. now let's talk about the team that will execute our vision. that is our member companies, many of whom are here. in your packets, there is a list of all of our member companies. we could not be prouder of the number of tech companies in san francisco who have already joined s.f. citi. at 5:00 yesterday, we had 72 members. this morning, we had 85 members.