>> this meeting will come to order. this is the regular meeting of the land use and economic development committee meeting. to my right is a supervisor christina olague who will be sitting in for supervisor mar. >> please make sure to silence all devices. items act upon today will appear in the april 3 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. supervisor cohen: thank you.

the first quarter we need to take care of is to excuse supervisor mar. so moved. without objection. could you please read the first item? >> a resolution authorizing the issuance of multi family bonds not to exceed the multifamily project known as an 1140 st. family housing -- 11 84th street family housing. >> good afternoon, supervisors. with the mayor's office of housing. thank you for entertaining our project. this project is being sponsored by mercy house in california. this is the final stage of the

financing for the project which will be the issuance of the bond. the project is a family development, a 150 family unit, so there will be multiple bedrooms. of the 150 units, we will have 25 set aside for formerly homeless families. this project represents the first in that area of a vibrant community where we will target affordable, low-income folks as well as a component that would be formerly homeless. this is one of the last upswing you before we start construction. as soon as we close the bonds, we plan on starting construction. construction will be for approximately 17 months, at which point we will begin leasing the units.

we appreciate your support and if you have any questions, i am available to answer them. supervisor cohen: colleagues, any questions? are there any members of the public to what like to speak on this item? seeing there are no members of the audience interested in public comment, we will close this item. please read the next item. >> what action would you like to take? i believe that the matter is going out as a committee report. supervisor cohen: that will appear on the full board of supervisors agenda tomorrow,

march 27. >> ordnance amending the san francisco planning code to extend existing uses. >> there were a number of amendments that require this to be continued until today. the ordinance before the committee today is an extension of the eastern neighborhood legitimization program which would extend the time of the program by six months from the adoption of this ordinance dated november 12 of this year. we have established a 90-day time frame by which the applicants must submit relevant application materials to department staff. i have no further amendments to this item today and would urge your support. are you interested in speaking on item number two?

you don't have to. fantastic. >> i'm from the planning department. we made a presentation last week. supervisor cohen: are there any members of the public to like to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor olague: i looked at the article that appeared in the "examiner" and it appeared to have exaggerated numbers. are -- do you have a response and can you clarify whether the information that was presented was accurate or not or am i

asking too much at this point? >> we are aware of that article. there were a couple that ran, the second one was an editorial. our director is preparing an official response from the department. there was a reference to 1000 businesses at jeopardy and but not sure where that number came from. our analysis is based upon the bradstreet business database, showing there are only 500 office type uses in this district at all. and they would only be subject to change rules and of those, only a fraction would be their illegally. as long as they have the legal permits, there is no jeopardy at

all. we are only talking about the most recent businesses. the only thing we would like to point out is part of the eastern neighborhoods process, the city did transition about half the industrial and to open up for other uses. what we are talking about is a fraction of a fraction of the landed the city that has these restrictions against office uses in some residential uses. supervisor olague: thank you for the clarification. having spent so much time in that area, it seemed -- the numbers seem higher than what i remember. >> i think you can look for more information from our director. >>supervisor olague: if you woud forward me a copy of that letter. i would appreciate that. fred schneider has a lot of property there and he has come

forward and legitimized his businesses. i just wanted to commend him for doing that. supervisor cohen: any other questions or comments? i would like to entertain a motion to send this item ford as a recommendation. so moved. let's move this item forward with recommendations. item #3. >> ordinance amending the planning code to create a new definition of student housing. supervisor wiener: colleagues, this legislation provides for the first time a definition of student housing applicable throughout the planning code. right now, there's an existing definition, but it only applies to the eastern neighborhoods area. a clear definition as part of the effort to address the shortage of student housing available in san francisco while

also acknowledging that we have a lot of different kinds of housing shortages. we want to create new student housing without cannibalizing existing housing stocks. we as a city to provide incentives to the creation of student housing, including exemption from the inclusion rehousing requirements, exemptions from unit-mix requirements, and reduced open space requirements. this legislation will bring noticing requirements in line with all new dwelling units and neighbor and commercial districts. in addition today, i am introducing amendments which i understand will require the legislation goes back to the planning commission. those amendments will provide

that for very limited circumstances we can allow educational institutions to reconfigure existing housing, including situations where the previous housing unit was religious housing like monasteries or convents or where you have a housing on a lot that's adjacent to a post- secondary institution and that has been honed at least 10 years by that institution. that said, i have distributed the amendments and when we're done, i will be asking the committee to adopt the amendment. my understanding is we will need to send this back to the planning commission. miss haywood from the planning department is here if you like to address the committee. >> the goals of the proposed

legislation are to propose new student housing while protecting the existing housing stock. the department will first and foremost have a definition of student housing applicable across the planning code but will also have the means to control the loss of housing through its conversion to student housing. in december of 2010, the mayor signed an ordinance exempting student housing from inclusion rehousing fees. when housing is providing to students who have demonstrated some financial need. when that was considered, it directed staff to develop a comprehensive definition of student housing that could be used throughout planning code for clarity. this effort came out of that ordinance. the planning commission recommends creating a definition where there would be

occupancy, ownership or control. student housing could take the form of dwelling units, a group housing, but it must be owned, operated, or controlled by an accredited post-secondary educational institution. that means individual landlords can continue to rent to students and it only becomes technically student housing when it is owned or controlled by the post-secondary institution. supervisor weaner has outlined the changes. most significantly, the ordinance would prohibit conversions from housing to student housing. it the ordinance would reduce the open space requirements for dwelling units less than 350 square feet plus a bathroom, it would remove the unit makes requirement for student housing

projects and a mandate notification procedures to be consistent with how new projects are publicized and would facilitate the conversion from student housing back to housing through zoning administration review. this provides a general view of the policy goals and i am available for questions. >>supervisor wiener: do we have any public comment? if anyone would like to make public comment, come forward and fill out a yellow card. if you want to speak and fill out the cards afterward, that is fine. >> in my several decades of work, i have become interested in student housing partly

because of several institutions located there have a great need for it and the greater civic center is an area that often gets highlighted as an appropriate place to build student housing and the only active project is currently proposed at ninth and mission street. if when this was worked on in 2010, it was agreed that there needed to be more work to provide incentives to get to this housing built and when 15 months is passed and if you have before you -- i would submit it does not provide incentives necessary to get much if any housing built. it's mostly related to regulation and restriction of housing against conversion of

existing housing and other related matters. the biggest problem is the continual use of the definition of student housing which is controlled by the institutions of higher education. in my discussion with a number of these institutions, they do not wish to own or operate or take the financial risk of controlling student housing. they want the arrangement a bit looser in which the developer and owner takes on the risks of the building and operating the building collects rents from the students and the institution would provide the umbrella under the current law allowing the developer to build housing

without the subsidy included for affordable housing. it is my view that you need to loosen up this legislation to accomplish this or you will have few if any student housing built. some institutions with large resources like the university of california at san francisco can do this. but others do not have those resources and they need a third party to do it for them. i have mentioned this numerous times and it seems to have no effect. i've written a memo and would suggest when you send this back that you ask the planning commission to interact with potential developers and the institutions and get a clearer

-- [tone] understanding of what the real world as a about. supervisor wiener: thank you. >> the objective of the legislation is worthy. we want to have new housing built in san francisco and so we should encourage that to happen. we want to protect the existing housing stock because we have a critical shortage of housing for people and the residents of san francisco. under those circumstances, i cannot see that happening in this legislation and i'm glad to hear will be referred to the planning commission so there will be a closer review of what the legislation provides.

for example, the private ownership of housing occupied by students but not owned by the university of means the private person owns the student housing. what is student housing? it is high-density housing. the legislation provides the zoning administrator to have a simple hearing that will allow the private owner to convert and be allowed to rent the housing. that is not protecting the housing stock of san francisco. it is creating a nice big profit making machine for people who

want to invest -- to have an assured supply and then eventually turn it over out of the students and have the public rented and it will be rented at the high rates and it will be paid by the students. i am happy to hear what is happening to housing and san francisco is a disgrace. it's destroying our economy and you can get high tech jobs which cannot live here if you don't have affordable housing. [tone] you are doing that on behalf of institutions like the academy

has $200 million to spend and they have been doing things illegally for 15 years. i would appreciate it if you would explain that. >> thank you. i think this problem has been with us for awhile but it has become more critical with the loss of redevelopment. there is no more resources. we go down to just building 50 or 75 units a year while we are converting 200 or 400 units a year from rent-controlled housing to student housing but not just student housing, vacation rentals and executive suites, we're digging a deeper and deeper hole. that is why i support the original legislation to ban the conversion of any rent- controlled housing to student housing. i want to say one thing about

why it's not even in the institution's interest. the academy of art university used to say it is not rent control and they would admit they are covered by rent control. there are certain just causes for eviction and one of them is not that you graduate. another is not that you drop out of the school and a third is not the to go from being a freshman to a sophomore. as the students learn they are under rent control, when the schools as you have to move out because this is freshman housing and we're going to raise rent 10%, or are going to say i choose to stay here and student housing becomes general population housing. a number of institutions i talked to wanted to go to a conditional use and they said in almost all the housing adjacent to this is old enough to be under rent control. i have sensed there is less oppositis