-- deny the permit. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i have been sticking it out with you since 12:30 and you have been doing a great job. issues the my colleagues have brought up, we have been working on the plan for quite a long time. we are almost there, and in addition to some of the details that we mentioned, the last planning commission meeting, we were talking about menus. we brought copies of the menu, bento boxes, and they are pricey. they have a lot of specials and things. when you look eddies prices, very low and affordable. when you have specials like a 99 cent specials on this, a special

deal on a chicken pox, it is all in here. the regular restaurant people, they don't charge these prices. they go out of business. it is quite an adverse affect on those businesses. in addition, if you go a couple blocks down, there is already a tapioca business there. i really think that you should support the d.r. president miguel: are there additional speakers in support? if not, project sponsor?

>> good evening, commissioners. i'm the owner of the project. commissioners, i don't have big corporations or organizations behind me. with my limited english skills, please forgive me if i -- i tried to explain my cases clear as possible. please feel free to stop me any time if you don't understand. i have also provided copies for review. today is my second time attending this public hearing and i would like to thank the commissioners for giving me this opportunity for the business concept. i found it [unintelligible]

my family and i have the business in chinatown. they also have a facebook page as evidence to show we are a formula retail establishment. they also took parts of my speech and tried to make me look like this evil person. please allow me to clarify these issues. [unintelligible] it will make all of these other businesses become formula retail as well.

there is a very clear definition of what is considered a form of retail and it has nothing to do with ownership. it has nothing to do with the background and it has nothing to do with the facebook page. it has nothing to do with property management. if someone tries to accuse my new business that it is going to be formula retail, please provide evidence based on the formula retail ordinance. additional terms should be added and they should bring it to the board of supervisors instead of the planning commission to discuss. i want to bring a live example. i have a good friend who is the founder and ceo of a nationwide yogurt venture. in san francisco, it started a

business concept, and now, he's expanded to six stores already along witha nother -- with another store. on irving street. since it has 11 locations in the united states, they are not considered a formula retail establishments. the english is such -- it has never been treated as a formula retail establishments. my company is owned by me, not by anyone else. i also have a business with a wholesale relationship, and i believe it has this effect. keep using this logic to accuse

my new business logic. my new business logo is not similar at all. it is just a job. i have never gotten any approval. it is never published. mentioning quickly, the truth is quickly -- highly respected commissioners, today i am here to apply for a change of use permit. it is not related to any of my

other businesses. i hope that my business will be able to expand to four miller retail. president miguel: thank you. your time is up. speakers in favor of the project sponsor? >> a good friend of mine,

[unintelligible] and also due to limited investment. please, commissioners, this is for my knowledge and thank you for your valuable time. president miguel: additional speakers in favor of the project sponsor? >> there is an argument that they are a chain store, but there are already chain stores in japan town mall, the

japanese bookstore is an international chain. kabuki hotel is owned by a corporation that owns a chain of hotels. there is the emerson bakery. where is the problem in having a store open when they are loosely affiliated. thank you. president miguel: are there additional speakers in favor of the project sponsor? >> i am here to support the applicant for his project. japan has many different

restaurants but does not have any place i deal for this uncertainty. i have friends the and on businesses in japan town, and it would only be beneficial. i support this asian business opening in japan town. thank you. president miguel: are there additional speakers in support of the project sponsor? >> my name is crystal, i am coming here to support the project sponsor. many of my friends enjoy japanese culture a lot.

we also visit places ichiban and others. we go to the other side of gary boulevard to purchase chinese desert and have a cup of my favorite chinese tea. it would be cool -- since it is a little dangerous. president miguel: are there additional speakers? >> my name is mary, and i am here to support the project sponsor. personally, i love to go to japan town with my friends and we love to go there. we love puddings and smoothies. the other dessert place are mainly selling crepes and

yogurt. it doesn't offer crepes or yogurt. it does not create any direct competition to the shopping center. thank you for your time. president miguel: are there additional speakers in favor of the project sponsor? if not, d.r. requester has a two-minute rebuttal. >> i will be brief. i have heard nothing really that this use the information we provided to this commission that mr. liu is in direct ownership base k is aobe the bent -- of the kobe bento chains. the excerpts from the website were intended to show the permeable relationship with

which he is associated. he says he is independent, but we have seen nothing to anything else that indicates he is nothing but trading on the relationship with the chain. that is precisely what the formula retail restrictions are designed to limit, and that should be done here. the signal to the public is that this is through the trademark service images that he claims are totally different. the public will be quite clear as to who this entity is associated with. that is the critical link in establishing the elements of a

formula retail. how does the public perceive this? that image is how it is marketed to the public. it is not something that is supposed to be part -- we asked the commission to deny a permit. president miguel: project sponsor, you have two minutes. >> first of all, i need to clarify, kobe bento is owned by me. we have no franchise whatsoever. we have support from the community.

the nature of my application, please give me this an opportunity to serve the community. the cafe is a different concept it is owned by me. i don't have any franchise. thank you, commissioners. president miguel: i just heard it again. kobe bento is owned by me. commissioner borden? commissioner borden: i tried to give the project sponsor the

benefit of the doubt, but everything has been unclear from the start. we ask you this serving, the menu, it changed, and it seems like there is an attempt to start what they'd be a conditional use process. i am frustrated by the fact that in the time that you had, you did not reach out to the community and try to work with them. we said we wanted you to work with the community at talk about your concept and figure out a way that there can be some sort of common ground, but you did not do that. the evidence shows that there may be evidence that what you want to do is open a kobe bento. you kept referring to kobe bento. the issue that i have is dishonesty. pick a side whether or not there should be formula retail, but there isn't an honest answer.

it has been changing back and forth, and even one of the speakers mentioned that there is -- even if there is a loose relationship, that is not the point. if you are circumventing the process, that is the issue. it doesn't give us faith that you will be a good business operator if you do legal work on the space, if you don't reach out and have a community outreach meetings like all businesses are asked to do when they go to a space. they're going to be formally retail but not apply in the process to do that. i don't know what the truth is and i should not have to figure it out. commissioner moore: when this commission continued the item,

that was a real gesture of supporting the applicant to do what we mostly need to have done, that is clarity and what you are applying for, i will not go as far as speaking about lives, it is something i do not feel comfortable doing. i will say there is something seriously lost in translation. to the extent that the applicant does not understand the process, he doesn't seem to have anybody that helps them, he is unclear what the rules are and i can interpret any rule on my own and say that i am right.

it is for that very reason that i don't have any feeling that i can approve this project. [unintelligible] it was leaving it open and giving room for dialogue. i don't feel that their response today was anything that has moved by an inch. it is for that reason that i would like to take the d.r. and deny the project. >> second. commissioner sugaya: i would like to agree with both of the other commissioners, part of the issue that have been the last time, this was before us, and i noticed there was no representative of the landlord.

they purchased and the japan center a number of years ago. it prompted concerns on part of the japan town community. supervise mirkarimi authored a special use district that is in effect there now. the the new owners decided to participate in the japan town better neighborhoods plan. after that process, but after a number of years and when the draft came to the commission had and was sent back for additional work, 3-d dropped out of the picture weather for economic reasons or anything else. the unfortunate thing is that

their property is crucial to the future of japan town and to not have landlord participation is extremely disturbing to me. and to have that the landlord fully knowledgeable about the city's process and what it takes and to not have worked a little bit more closely with the community and with this particular gentleman who proposed his business there seems to me to be an little bit on a businesslike. that is directed towards a landlord. in any case, i think that this complicates matters immensely that we have this kind of situation existing.

>> i am in agreement with the other commissioners. the whole thing is process. had this been brought forward as an application as part of a formula retail, there are times when the form of a retail establishment can bring people to an area that would normally be there but this is coming in kind of back door and i don't think that is proper. >> i am also and support of the other commissioners and particularly the remarks of commissioner sugaya. we have in front of us from time to time all types of building landlords from what can be turned slum landlords to landlords who care nothing about their property and in this case we have a landlord that

cares nothing about the city as far as i can see as well as who they have as their property manager who allowed construction to go on on their property without proper permits and to go through that process and never come before us in order to explain any circumstances whatsoever. that would at least give us some indication that they care. to me, that is terrible. they are still not here. i must presume that they have no consideration of their current or anticipated tenants whatsoever. again, as i said at the very beginning of our remarks, the

last words that i heard out of the project sponsor's mouth and i wrote them down at the weigh exactly the quote last time he was here. -- i wrote them down echoing exactly the "last time he was here. >> we suggest that should you exercise your powers, one of the primary findings that the proposal is extraordinary and unusual particularly in that this is not consistent with the purposes and intent of japan town.

"no one can say it better than you did. -- a >> no one can say it better than you did. >> commissioners, the motion on the floor is to take discretionary review in light of this proposal with the finding that has been articulated by the acting zoning administrator. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> that passes unanimously. you are now on item number 17 has. >> i have to ask for board

recusal. a company that i work for provided some design assistants to the assistance of the client therefore there is a conflict of interest. i did not work on it or anything. >> move to recuse commissioner sugaya. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> to discretionary review has been filed in an alteration permit application. alterations along the rear facade are proposed. a discretionary review was filed

by the owner west of the project. his concerns are primarily that this is out of scale and would adversely affect neighborhood character and he also has some light and shadow concerns. to this date, the department has received 8 letters of support hong then all of those are from other side of rico way. the department head is not fine need to be exceptional or extraordinary. they are not averse and we recommend that the commission approved the project as proposed. >> thank you.

dr requester. >> good evening. i represent the requester. we have the proposal of a third story addition to this building. and this would add an additional floor of occupancy. the project has significant impact on the streetscape of ri co way. this is only 26 feet wide of pavement. there are nine houses on this side of the street.

this is the side of the street we are talking about. there are nine buildings. they are all two story. there are a number of buildings including our building that has a penthouse. this is set so far back that you cannot see it from the street. this building is interested in the right in the middle of this line of nine buildings. this is very low scale, lots of light and so on and so forth on this side of the street. what this project will do