commissioner miguel: debt afternoon. welcome to san francisco's planning commission regular meeting for thursday, february 23, 2020 published 2012. the commission does not tolerate any discussion or outbursts out of time, clapping, yelling, are cheering. please turn off any mobile devices during proceedings. when speaking, speak directly to the microphone and state your name for the record. at this time, i would like to call roll. president, commissioner miguel: here. commissioner antonini: present. commissioner borden: here. commissioner fong: here. commissioner moore: here. commissioner sugaya: here. commissioner wu: here. >> items for continuance. case 2007.0030e, 8 washington

street, certification of the final environmental impact report. . schiedam2a-g, case number is 2007.0030e, c, k, m, r, and z for 8 washington street. both of those items are proposed for a continuance to march 8, 2012. item three, case 2011.1216c, 9 west portal avenue. conditional use opposition to a proposed for an indefinite continuance. item 4, 2011.0207c, 112 seventh street, request for a conditional use authorization has been withdrawn. commissioners, further on your calendar, under your regular calendar, items 15, a case

2011.1304c, 1245 south van ness avenue, a conditional use authorization request. we just received a request from supervisor campos, of which is requested to be read into the record, regarding item 2011 he.1304c, fresh and easy grocery store. dear honorable commissioners, several of my constituents have contacted me to express their concerns about fresh and easy moving into the space at 1245 south van ness. without prejudging, i am writing to request a you continue the item so that fresh and easy has an opportuni to meet with parties opposed to the project to address their concerns. i am not categorically opposed to the opening a store in the mission, but i do believe the corporation must work with the local community to ensure that the store meet local needs. thank you for your consideration.

sincerely, david campos. those are all the requests for a continuance at the moment. commissioner miguel: do we have a possible date for continuing south of an ass? >> i do not have one propose, but i can look up -- for van ness, do we have a possible date? >> i do not have one proposed, but i can look it up. >> is looking at the calendar. i do not know how long that would be needed. i am thinking something like the middle of march. i do not know, march 15 or march 22. >> march 22. >> march 22. >> yes, let's think about that. commissioner miguel: is there any public comment on the items proposed for continuance? >> i am larry, representing fresh and easy. if you're going to take that

item up at the call of the item, then i will comment at that time. thank you. >> sue hester on 8 washington. i clarification, i left a message with linda. i want a clarification, this is continued until 10:00 a.m., so we do not have any glitches. that is my understanding. but i think it should be clear that it is continued to 10:00 a.m. on march 8. thank you. >> i am sorry, that is right. yes, that is my understanding. commissioner miguel: any other public comment on items up for a continuance? if not, public comment is closed. commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: yes, that is a good question on the advanced calendar regarding that item or any other item. i think it is possible, correct me if i am wrong, that between now and the time the final

calendar is generated, there could be a change in the time of an item. correct? not earlier, but it could be later. ok. the other question i had is nine west portal, i think it is. indefinite continuance. just wondering if anyone knows what the reason for the continuance was. item three, 9 west portal avenue is the address. >> we can try to find out. commissioner antonini: i mean, i do not need to know that right now, but it would be good to find what direction that is moving in. so i am going to move to continue items one, 2a, b, c, d,e,f, g.

to the date specified -- well, there's no date for three. that is indefinite. >> second. commissioner miguel: on that motion -- commissioner antonini: yes. hite commissioner borden: yes. commissioner fong: yes. commissioner moore: yes. commissioner sugaya: is. commissioner miguel: yes. so moved, that passes unanimously and places you under your consent calendar. all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar and are considered routine by the planning commission and will be acted upon by a single roll call vote of the commission. and those of the discussion at these items unless a member of the public, commission, or staff requests. in which event, it will be removed from the calendar and considered as a separate item. item five is the 2012.0016t,

proposed amendments to planning code section.1179d. the commission will consider an ordinance to extend by 90 days, the period of time in which existing uses in the eastern neighborhoods area that have operated without filing an application for legitimization. item six, 2011.1059c, 211 sutter street, a conditional use authorization request. i would like to bring to your attention, for this particular case, the second paragraph under surrounding properties and neighborhood under the executive summary can be omitted and should be ignored as it was in denver in transferred from another case reports. however, it is correct in the motion and ocean not affect this case. the department still has not received comments from any

member of the public. item 7, 2011.1145c, 601 tompkins avenue, request for a conditional use authorization. i have several for item 7. those are the three cases you have on your consent calendar. commissioner miguel: so in public comment, on item 7, i have shawn, bill, richard, and steve. you realize that if we pull it off, it is going to go through on consent. if you wish to speak, we have to pull it off and a year later. does anyone wish to speak on this item? >> if we do not need it, we will not speak. commissioner miguel: it just

makes it easier. thank you. is there any other public comment? >> i would like a brief discussion on item 5 when it comes up, please. thank you. commissioner miguel: on item 5. ok, we will pull five of the consent calendar and hear it at the first of the regular calendar. is there further public comment on items on the consent calendar? if not, public comment is closed. commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: i move that we approve items 6 and 7 on consent. >> second. >> on that motion to approve items six and seven -- commissioner antonini: yes. commissioner borden: yes. commissioner fong: yes. commissioner moore: yes. commissioner sugaya: is. commissioner miguel: yes.

>> unanimous. now, questions and matters. item eight, election of officers. commissioner miguel: commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: i would like to make some nominations that that is a bridge. i nominate rodney fong for president, cindy wu for vice president. commissioner miguel: in lieu of a second, did the commissioners who are nominated agree to serve? are there further nominations? >> i guess i will second. commissioner miguel: you do not need a second if they agree. no further nominations. nominations are closed. is there public comment on this item? hearing no public comment, public comment is closed. >> commissioners, on the nomination of commissioner fong

for president and commissioner wu for vice-president -- commissioner miguel: yes. commissioner borden: yes. commissioner antonini: yes. commissioner fong: yes. commissioner moore: know. commissioner sugaya: i did not get time to say something. is it appropriate or do just want me to vote? commissioner miguel: it is appropriate to say something before you vote. commissioner sugaya: at the risk of alienating most of the city, i suppose, when the mayor ran his campaign, one of the premises had to be being open and be more cooperative. generally, you know, trying to get away from the divisiveness that apparently people thought had been previously, especially with the board of supervisors. apparently, that does not extend

to the planning commission, and that is why i am voting no. commissioner wu: yes. commissioner miguel: yes. >> so moved, commissioners. commissioner miguel: congratulations. >> thank you. commissioner miguel: congratulations. commissioner fong: if i may, i want to thank fellow commissioners for voting in support of my leadership, and congratulations to commissioner wu and her leadership as vice president. as we have discussed today, and lendl is not here today, we would like to continue with commissioner miguel as the current president for the rest of today's meeting, and we will switch up at the next meeting. >> make it effective next thursday. ha commissioner miguel: well, at the end of this meeting. >> very well. >> i also want to thank my colleagues and all want to

address the long time service and hard work that both commissioners moore and sugaya have put into this mission. i recognize that i am the newest member of the commission could be as willing to serve, happy to serve, and willing to work with everyone on the commission. >> thank you. commissioner antonini: is it time for comment? my personal congratulations. >> item 9, a commission, comments, and questions. commissioner antonini: an excellent article in today's chronicle, where most of you have seen in the ongoing concern, the legitimate one about housing, particularly, housing for families and what is presented as the middle income group. i thought it was very well- written, and this example that

is shown in that article is typical of the number of families i see, particularly in my dental practice, who have been the goal to with the cost issue and the appropriateness of housing for the needs. i am happy that this is being discussed. we have a number of supervisors who have taken it as an important issue, and perhaps we will find a way to resolve this and provide incentives for the city and builders in general to address this and to try to stem the flood of families from a particularly those with children, from san francisco. i think that was excellent. i wanted to take a moment of personal privilege. on monday's chronicle, a relative of mine was featured as the lonesome cowboy. and tim, who we shared maternal grandmother's, our maternal grandmother's were sisters, and he is a great guy and

exemplifies the principles of hard work, common sense, and perseverance. i thought it was a very good article, and it shows how difficult it it is. but he is not giving up on his profession as a cattleman, and that shows a lot. the third or fourth generation in the business. an interesting article. during the last week, i have had a number of discussions with people regarding two controversial items on purge oroville that will double the john pretrip -- potrero hill that will be coming to us in the future. i had the pleasure, along with commissioner moore, of attending a forum, from warehouse to new house, exploring the problems in the benefits of converting historic warehouses' to housing. some very, very interesting case studies. i thought it was very, very good and well -- and a well-attended

forum. i will lead into something else here. yesterday, i had the pleasure of attending at noon in the department, a retirement party for a 20-year veteran of the department, john. i have a resolution -- pardon the length of it, but 20 years. i would like to read the resolution into the record. >> that item is later on the calendar. >> in the director's report. commissioner antonini: then we will wait until that. we can do it at that time. i would like to close the meeting in memorialist of may louie. may passed away on february 6 at the age of 87. she and her husband, sinclair, at one time owned and operated

at least 10 at retail locations along in grand avenue in chinatown. back in 1960, they purchased a very nice home in san francisco. and her neighbors became so adamant that a chinese family trying to buy into their exclusive enclave that they tried to buy them out. i am proud to say that may and sinclair did not succumb to that. there were excellent neighbors and customers of mine. also a great family. sinclair is still with us, but it is a shame to see that may passed away. >> commissioners, we will be moving on to the directors' report. item 10, directors announcements. >> good afternoon.

i actually do not have any announcements today. we can move right into the next item on and john's retirement. i do not see him here. is he on his way, i hope? >> he is retired. [laughter] >> maybe we can and defer that until john comes. >> we will be skipping item 11 and moving into item 12 for 55 ninth st., informational item regarding the current design and program for the 55 ninth street project. >> the informational item for you today is with respect to a project at 55 ninth street. approved in december 2007 to construct a 17-story building with approximately 260 dwelling units. 3000 square. ground-floor retail space. off-street resident of parking spaces, 98. 15 off-street commercial spaces. section 309 review, including

several exceptions which i can go through. and conditional use authorization to allow some additional on-site affordable dwelling units. this was an reappeared -- i should mention as well that there were several variances granted by the zoning administrator. all of the entitlements work real extended last year by the commission and the zoning administrator. the project sponsor has submitted a site permit for this project, which staff has confirmed designed substantial conformance with the initial approval. there is some revised architecture, which i will have the project sponsor go into greater detail, but the program and the design changes. the project is providing 33 on site below market rate housing units, in addition to several other affordable units that were part of the original conditional use authorization approval. above and beyond the 33 required

bmr units. staff will continue to work with the project sponsor on some of the details, such as materiality and administration throughout the building permit review process. informational item before you today with no action required. i would like to turn it over to the project sponsor for further details. thank you. commissioner miguel: thank you. >> good afternoon. i am with avalon bay communities. by way of background, avalon bay is a developer, owner, and operator of department buildings, and we own and manage about 1800 apartments in san francisco pravda today. we are under contract to purchase the property at 55 ninth street and have been collaborating to that end over the last eight months with planning staff, towards refreshening the project in the living it forward. we intend to break ground this

summer. staff has been very focused and put a lot of effort into this, and we appreciate that. we're pleased to be here today. but the design team is here to present our refreshed design of a 55 ninth street. i wanted to express our enthusiasm about being involved in the central market area. i think, finally, this is the beginning of a renaissance, and we're thrilled to be a part of that. i will introduce careers, our principal architect with scp, and he will do a quick overview with our design. thank you. >> good afternoon. i am with the architect group here in the city. i have a brief presentation to show you with some graphics. so the first exhibit here is showing you the location, and you can see the overall segment on the left and then on the right is showing you very close

to where we are right now, just a few blocks from here. this is about one block in from market street on its ninth. -- on ninth. this is just a little bit more detail. you can see market street running on the left-hand image. it has currently been landscaped. going up ninth street turning onto hayes, this is something you would pass commonly. this exhibit shows, on the left, the 2007 entitled design for a residential building that had 260 units on it. and then on the right is the proposed massing, and of the diagram on the right also illustrates the fact that one of our goals here is to make sure that we stay within the physical envelope that was approved previously. you can see that our massing concept, there is a dashed line

on the right hand image which shows the 2007 design, and then our massing its entirely within the envelope. just a brief summary, this is hard to read. but the previous project had 260 units, and this is a comparison chart with the previous design and our current design. we have 273 units, just a slight admission of 13 units. the previous building was about 204 feet tall. we're a little bit shorter at 100 and 86 feet. our f.a.r. area remains largely unchanged, a little bit less, by 100 feet. the retail area was around 3000 square feet. in 2007, we have increased that to about 4850 square feet of retail. but the location is more or less the same, just a slightly bigger space. open space requirements were

done as of right to previously, and they're done as of right now. with the mass things, we have a much larger -- larger garden space. public art, a requirement for one reason construction cost. that is still the same, no change in the parking is really the same. car share is the same. loading is the same. the in and out egress for vehicles is also the same. the way we treated our ground floor and of the sort of basic numbers for the site is really the same. we slightly increased the amount of bicycle parking on site. we believe of residents of this area, this will be a primary mode of transport. there is an increase there. and also the way we're positioning the bicycles in our plan really makes them sort of front and center for all residents will use this building. i would like to quickly take you through a couple of the plans, show you some of the elevations, and then i will wrap up.

just looking at the building section, again, as a comparison, you can see that our building is dramatically reduced in height and bulk from one was there before. the exhibit on the right-hand side of that page is the current design with the blue stripes on it. but the number of floors and other residents are positioned is about the same. and little hard to read this, but suffice to say that the ninth street is on the left-hand side of each of these images. the kind of beige . on the right is our retail space. the yellow area is our main lobby. to the north is the landscaped terrace, which is a little bit larger than what was there before. bicycle parking is directly access top of that terrace space and is all at the ground floor. this is the second floor image.

again, you can see our floor plan is a little bit smaller, but we also have a much larger open space, almost 10,000 feet of open space that is a common amenity to the entire building, and it is located to the south. you will see that in the mass things -- massings as well. this is a typical four, showing how we refit into the previously entitled design. a couple of renderings. on the left, you can see their original design. this is looking up ninth street. on the right is our proposed design. one of the things we have really tried to do is to make the design much more residential in character. we felt that the original entitlements, in early 2000's, were for an office building. the new design -- while it became a residential building, it does not look residential.

one of our goals with planning has been to try to give this a bit more residential character. you can see that there are a couple primary building elements before us. on the right hand side, if you're looking at that image, there is an element that has some dynamic motion to it. it kind of goes from market street and sweeps up to become almost like a chair element, we're calling it. it is meant to reflect the kind of transition from the market street architecture to some of the varied forms that you see when you are into the south of market, a long mission, in the area. -- a long mission, in the area. both of these are focused on the south facade. the previous design on the left had almost a share wall facing south but went down to a very small open space. if you're looking at the south face of the new design on the

right, you will see that that building tucks in and creates this wonderful open space, which is about 10,000 feet to the south. finally, just a building elevation study. the amount of materials is reduced and a simplified. we have introduced significant usable balcony's over what was in the existing design. you can see that chair element, the orange the sort of zig zagged form. this is meant to make some reference to this transition from market street to mission street. this is just a final image looking down ninth straight. so if you're standing sort of near the furniture mart looking across the street at night, this is what you would see. there is open space to the north, this plaza, and you can

see a row of trees. behind that is our garden, which will have access to the bicycle parking in the lobby. that is our presentation. commissioner miguel: thank you. is there any public comment on this item? >> sue hester. i was involved in this project five years ago. two things. one, the design is a really good improvement. it kind of matches the quality of the design of the best projects in this area. affordable housing development, mercy charity did a bang out job, and their projects on mission street are tremendously wonderful architecturally. i particularly love their land turn at the end of their elevators. second question,