your mics are off. they're on now. [roll call] commissioners, the first category are calendar items proposed for cant wans. item one is case number 2011 .1293c. proposed for continuance to april 12, 2012. item number two, case number 2012 .0084 ddd for 2735 to 2737 baker streets, this item is currently on calendar proposed for cant wans to april 26, 2012. however, staff has informed me that the d.r. requesters are asking for continuance to be further out and you can take that at the call of that item. or after we announce all the items.

item number three is case number 2011 .0148 e. the mini and lovey, proposed for continuance to june 28, 2012. commissioners, i am not aware of any other item on this calendar being proposed for continuance. president fong: is there any public comment on these items? seeing none, commissioner miguel? commissioner miguel: i move the items -- i'm sorry. >> public comment. >> the 2735 matter. april 26 was the debt set by the department. but on account of our calendars, we cannot all be there that date, but we very much appreciate it if we could extend either to june 7 or june 21, which are both dates that we are able to make. all of us are here, by the way,

there are two separate d.r. applications and two of our neighbors also. >> commissioners, in addition to the d.r. applicants, you need to make sure that the project sponsor can be able for that date, and staff is available for that day. and i'm not sure who's here today or not. i would suggest that if the project sponsor is not here and we cannot confirm with the project sponsor and the d.r. requester that you continue it to the date proposed and staff will work with all parties to come up with a date that all parties can be available for, and on the 26th of april, you'll continue it to whatever date they come up with it. and only in the microphone, please. >> good evening. my name is brian soriano, i'm an attorney here representing the permit holder who is also here.

he would like to oppose this request to further delay the hearing on this discretionary review. if you want me to address that now, i would, but i know that you were in a public comment section. so if now is not the time you want those comments -- it is, ok. d.r.'s hearing was originally set for today's date, march 22, because on the last day possible, two of the private neighbors filed private request for discretionary review. that original march 22 date was already continued to april 26. they are now asking to push this out until a date in june when more of the people opposing the project can be present. i'm here to suggest that that is not a legitimate justification for the significant delay that they're asking for. and the burden that it places on the permit holder is undue. this process has been going on for a period of more than nine months, trying to work with the neighborhood association and

accommodate them. there have been many revisions of the plans at a great cost to permit holder. from the planning commission's own website, there's a section that talks about the attempted d.r. reform, which acknowledges and recognizes the problems with this discretionary review process, which points out that it makes the development process more lengthy and costly for all involved and that it takes nothing just to file the request. so those are the delays and problems and burdens placed on the permit holder in the normal situation, just by having discretionary review. here we have one that's already been continued for more than 30 days and now there's a request to put it out further into the summer until june. we would very much like to get on with this hearing and have it done. i think that the representatives from the city feel the same way. they can speak to that, if they like. the idea that they want subsequent date so many people can be here just really isn't

appropriate. everyone has the right to put in their thoughts on the proposed project, but we can't accommodate a day where everyone who wants to be there can be there, or this could continue to be put off into the future. people can submit written statements in advance of the hearing and they can prep neighbors, other association members or family members to represent their prepared words at the hearing. the idea that we have to look for a date that everybody that can be here -- and i'm not hearing that the actual people who filed discretionary review can't be here, but that their spouses or other members of the neighborhood who also want to put up their support can't be here. their support will be noted. there's a way for them to address that. we just don't think that this request justifies the burden it would place on the permit holder. president fong: thank you. >> thank you. president fong: >> commissioners, david lindsay from department staff. staff did select the april 26 date as what we thought was a

reasonable date far enough out that most people could accommodate or make arrangements to attend. we did not consult with all individuals in selecting that date, because frankly, that's often a futile process. we're prepared to go forward with whatever date the commission sees fit. president fong: is there additional public comment? you already had an opportunity. thank you very much. >> hi, i'm judith keyser -- >> can you speak right into that microphone? >> ok. i'm judith keyser, i'm the other d.r. applicant. i just want to give you my background. i hear that this has been going on for nine months. unfortunately, no one told me. and i did not find out about this project until march 3 when i had some held mail and was

able to see this permit request or whatever it's called. therefore in the last week, i've had to scramble to get together -- and i called the folks and they e-mailed me back. we haven't been able to -- they haven't acknowledged my interest in this, or my problems with this project. and apparently last summer, there was a meeting for the neighbors. i was never invited. i never heard about it. i knew nothing about this until this piece of paper showed up in my mail, you know, three weeks -- i was away for three weeks. and so i immediately called the other folks, and then on monday, was it the fifthish? i started asking questions and trying to get information and trying to get up to speed on this. this has a big impact on my unit and my house and i really sort

of i'm not a general mob of people coming here because i want to support something. this is affecting me directly. it affects my family directly. this is the place where i'm supposed to retire to. and i'm very upset to hear the way this was presented by the other side. i haven't had a chance -- my husband cannot be there. since we found out about it so late, he's giving a talk on the 26th in los angeles at 6:30. and the way these meetings seem to be running, it wouldn't work too well for him. and the next weekend, he's in denver giving a talk. and then we could work with mr. lindsay and ms. woods to try to figure out a time that works. now, the other d.r. person can't make it on other dates. so we've been working hard on this to figure this out. and it's been very upsetting to me. do you have any questions for me? i think you have a letter that

spells all this out that i submitted as soon as i heard what the date was. do you have that letter? addressed to ms. avery? no? president fong: thank you. commissioner miguel: we have the letter. >> i'm kelly con din, i'm the designer at the contract. i did interact with judith keyser -- our planner was also cc'd. she lives -- the reason that she was not notified, there's two reasons. the initial meeting was never required. we were not required to have any neighbor meetings. we've been meeting with the neighbors for nine months anyway. so not knowing that we've been meeting with with the association and cc'g 15 other people, personally me since december, is not the best excuse for a lack of notification that was never required in the first place. secondly, she lives more than one lot away, and her complaint

is that she faces -- commissioner miguel: could we cut this off? >> she has a right to speak. commissioner miguel: on the continuance. >> i'm trying to express that she's not immediately adjacent neighbor. so she was not supposed to be notified anyway. >> it can only be on the continuance. commissioner miguel: thank you. president fong: is there any other public comment on the item of continuance? commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i'm going to move to keep it at the 26th for now. now, for one thing, you can always continue something further, but you can't bring it back. this is a hybrid, because what you've got is a mandatory discretionary review for merger, and then we've also piggy backed on to that, the d.r. from the d.r. requesters, and i'm not sure about the whole noticing issues. when it's a mandatory d.r., i

don't know that for -- that you have any noticing requirements or maybe not as much as you would. maybe mr. lindsay can tell us a little bit about that. >> it wouldn't require the preapplication process, but it does require the regular 311. >> but not a preapplication meeting. so in any case, i think it's always better that maybe the two will work the thing out by the 26th of april and we won't actually have a d.r. that could always happen. if there is one, it could be continued from that date. but we can't have it any earlier. i'm going to move continuance of items to the dates requested, which are item one to the 12th. item two to the 26th of april. item three to june 28. >> commissioners, you have a motion before you for continuance of items one, two, and three as they are proposed on your calendar. on that motion -- [roll call]

those items are continued as they have been proposed. commissioners, you are now at your consent calendar, which contains items four and five. these items are considered to be routine and will be acted upon by a single roll call vote. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless one of you as commissioners pull or the staff so requests. in that event, the matter or matters would be removed from the con sent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or future hearing. the y emthes are four and five. item four is case number 2011.1218 c, a request for conditional use authorization to convert an existing retail coffee store that's doing business to a small self-service restaurant within an rh-3

district. item number five is case number 2012 .0186 t. this is waiving certain fees for small business matters. the planning commission will consider an ordinance introduced by supervisor chiu amending municipal codes, including planning code section 355 to waive fees for the month of may 2012, for certain facade improvements and may consider certain amendments. the commission may adopt findings, including environmental findings, planning code section 302 findings, and findings of consistency with the general plan and the priority policies of planning code section 101.1. commissioners, following any public comment, which would automatically remove the item from the consent calendar, this item is before you for your consideration. president fong: is there any public comment on items on the consent calendar?

seeing none, commissioner borden? commissioner borden: i move to approve items six and seven on the consent calendar. >> four and five. commissioner borden: four and five. i'm sorry. >> is there a second? >> second. >> thank you. thank you, commissioners. on the motion for approval of items four and five as they have been proposed -- [roll call] thank you, commissioners. you are now on your regular calendar beginning with item number six. case number 2011.0189 d for 721 beach street. president fong: commissioners, i asked if i could be recused from this item. commissioner miguel: i move to recuse commissioner fong. >> second. >> there's a motion for recusal

of commissioner fong. [roll call] >> commissioner fong is recused. president fong: vice president wu will chair this item. >> good evening, commissioners. gwen cabrera for department staff p the case before you is a mandatory discretionary review requested by this planning commission at the property at 721 beach street located at a c-2 community business district in the waterfront special use district number two, and also in the 40x hyde and bulk district. it proposed demolition of a four-story mixed use building with commercial spaces at the first and second floors. along the rear wall of the project, an interior connection is proposed to provide the project access to a commercial garage building that occupies

lot 4-d, which fronts on to hyde street. public comment today received by the planning department includes 16 letters in opposition to the project, including a letter from the aquatic park neighbors. in summary, most of the concerns are regarding the massing and scale of the property. also loss of light and air due to the project. two letters of support have also been received. at this time, the planning department does recommend to the planning commission to not take discr the project as proposed. i would be happy to answer any questions. thank you. wuwu d.r. requester has five minutes. >> this is mandatory, so we might want to hear from the project sponsor. vice president wu: oh, i'm sorry. project sponsor first.

>> we are excited to be here to present a project that provides a unique opportunity to the neighborhood to complete the block face of this important city block while also improving the operation of the surrounding sidewalks. i've got some other things to say, but i want to firsthand it over to the project architect so he can explain the project to you. >> thank you. good evening, commissioners. we're here to consider 721 beach street. we were hired by the sears about a year and a half to take a look at this project, and before we started design, we did three things. we listened to their program, we then met with the planning staff, reviewed the prior applications because there had been prior applications for building on this site. we also reviewed the fisherman's wharf plan. lastly, we reviewed the prior testimony from the hearings that were for that prior application.

that led us to our design criteria. we did not want to come before you with a building that required any variances. we have a building that is 40 feet high in a 40-foot height bulk area. we have parking provided in the adjourning building, which nicely the applicants own as well. with regards to the architecture, we're sort of uniquely qualified for that because our office is in the building three doors down and we've been there for quite a while. we provided a design that fits within the fabric of the neighborhood by using reused and recycled brick that's similar to the majority of the old warehouse buildings in that block. we're using a very modern windows system on it so that it

has a good relationship to the neighborhood, but isn't a replication of an old building. as i mentioned, we are in a 40-foot height bulk area. we are 40 feet high. the prior proposal that you may or may not have seen was 52 feet high. so we've actually removed one complete floor of the building. and this was at the request of our clients. they didn't want to build a building that had such a large impact on that neighborhood because they are in that neighborhood. we have the required parking in the adjourning -- adjoining building. the sears are planning on expanding their business, which is if bicycle rental business. they are now able to move bicycles between the two buildings without having to go on to the very crowded sidewalks in that area. it also allows garbage and other materials to be moved without using the public sidewalks.

lastly, we were very conscious of the height of the back of the building. we could have put more commercial square footage into the building and had a reduced rear yard, but we chose to keep the rear yard down and allow more light to penetrate into the adjoining buildings. we've also met with the neighbors and we have made some modifications to our proposal. we've removed 36 inches of a solid wall and replaced it with a see-through railing, so we've essentially reduced the bulk of the building down. we've also removed two staircase penthouses and recessed the stairs into the building to provide some cutouts on the side of the building and just to reduce the bulk and the view blockage for the neighbors. we have a couple views here that we'd like to show you. first one is how the building looks and how it reacts on beach

street. this one actually is on hide. you see the outlines of the buildings on hyde street on the lower portion, and how our building reacts with those. you can see our stepdown portion in the rear of the building and that we in fact are lower than the majority of those buildings. the upper image shows our building with relationship to north point street. the north point street buildings vary in height anywhere from a couple low ones, but some of them as high as 56 feet. our building is two feet high relative or three feet high relative to that facade. so we've tried to be a good neighbor and take into account context, height bulk, no variances. would be happy to answer any other questions if you have any. we do have a 3-d model of the entire neighborhood. with our building dropped into

it that we use to study the neighborhood and how our building fits in. so there you sort of see it in context. commission, the project sponsors are the owners of the blagse saddles bike rental project and it's been involved in the fisherman's wharf neighborhood for 30 years now. some of the details of the project, we strongly feel that the height and bulk of the building is appropriate. it doesn't stand out, as you see in the renderings and it's not the tallest nor the most massive building on the block. the height allows for a taller ground floor retail space, which is currently being encouraged by the department as well as the draft fisherman's wharf guidelines and also allows for modest nine and eight-foot floors above. the first and second floors we're going to provide comfortable retail space for their bulky bike rental

business. and then the back office space will allow them to centralize their administrative operations from a number of other locations from around the city. you've probably seen they have quite a few outlets. the project will greatly reduce the clutter on the beach and hyde street sidewalks. currently bikes are -- they do have a retail outlet at the project site right now and bikes are being moved back and forth on the sidewalk along hyde street. these two buildings will now be connected internally so that bikes will now be able to move internally off the street. it's also going to allow for garbage and recycling to be put out on hyde street, further opening up the sidewalk on beach street, which is as you all know, heavily walked by tourists. so jeff and elena are in a very unique position due to their existing business and building in the neighborhood, to make this project work at this location. they currently have 100

employees during the summer months and the project will allow them to continue to grow their san francisco-based business. i've got 22 letters in support and 37 merchant signatures and a group of folks to speak in favor of the project tonight. thank you. we urge your support. vice president wu: public comment? >> we will now open this up for public comment. each member of the public has three minutes to address the commission. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is jeff sears. my wife, elena and i, are the project sponsors and the owners of blazing saddles bike rentals and tours at 2715 hyde and 721 beach street. i grew up on russian hill and attended and graduated from george washington high school. and while i was in school, i worked at fisherman's wharf, and

later met my wife elena and we began a cab business there. that business evolved into our bike rental operation and we have been at our hyde street location for over 25 years now. we are open seven days a week, 365 days a year and have grown to be seven locations here in san francisco. we rent over 100,000 bikes per year to people from san francisco and all over the world and we're promoting a sightseeing activity that is both green and healthy in this environment that we are all lucky to live in. elena and i had the opportunity to buy the 721 beach property in 2010. we have been looking at the property for several years as the rear of the lot abuts our building on hyde street. we saw that this would allow us to expand our business and continue our growth. it will provide us with adequate back office staging space,

office space and staging space for the company and give us the opportunity to move back full time to the neighborhood we'd love and have invested in for decades. i was present at the 2008 planning commission hearing on the previous project at 721 beach and i listened to the neighborhood's concerns. our first step in moving forward with this project was to meet with the same planning department staff that worked on the 2008 project to determine what additional concerns the neighborhood had and what changes we needed to make in order to get this project approved. we lowered the height, reduced the unit count to one, provided a parking space for our dwelling unit, and redesigned the facade in response to neighborhood and planning commission comments and instructions. regarding our neighborhood outreach, we had four large meetings in 2011 with our neighbors and several smaller ones. many neighbors thought our

proposal was great and some did not. at the request of the aquater park neighbors association, we complied and asked for a continuance from our february 22 hearing and since have had three meetings with you are neighbors. we have committed years of our lafe live to the neighborhood. i am currently a board member of the fisherman's wharf community district and we have strong interest in maintaining the community for both residents and visitors alike. we have not been able to satisfy everyone in the neighborhood, but we have put forth an honest and good faith effort. we believe this is a very reasonable project and fits well with the commercial street frontsage and is significantly smaller than the original proposed -- thank you for your support. >> next speaker? >> i'm an architect here in san

francisco. i'm not working on the project in any capacity. the existing one-story building on the site amounts to a missing tooth in the heart of a major commercial area in san francisco. i think it's clear that what's proposed is consistent with the scale and fabric of the neighboring buildings on the street. as i understand it, it's also completely consistent with the planning department's zoning regulations. we have planning and zoning codes for a reason. and this project admires to them in creating a modest bilting that continues the urban scale of the block face. sometimes unique projects require variances. this project does not ask for or need any. the single story building currently occupying the site is the anomaly. it seems to have created a through block water view for a few private dwellings. i think the vitality that the proposed structure brings to the street is a far better outcome for the neighborhood as a whole. certainly better than preserving an unusually short building just to maintain pleasant views for a few. i think the proposed building is

well considered, appropriately scaled and it's going to be a great thing for the street. vice president wu: thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i own several businesses in the neighborhood of the proposed site, 721 beach street. i am in favor of the project. the structure that is there now is an eyesore. it looks like a tool shed. in this world class neighborhood, we have millions of tourists coming in to visit us and spend time down here, this project will look 10 times better than what it is now. i've been to several of the meetings that the sears have had to outreach with the neighborhood.