constrained potential development sites remaining. the transbay district being one of the largest concentrations of development space in the area. this plan seeks to take advantage of that. because of its proximity to the major regional transit. and then we further look to see if this is the general production cut 20 million square feet of office space, what is the capacity to absorb this? we looked at the zoning capacity of the area. we try to project out of a certain percentage billed as offices, billed as housing. -- built as offices, billed as housing. what it showed was that we have about half of the capacity under current zoning to absorb this 20 million square feet of office space.

that is a metal bar on that charge. it represents a scenario -- middle bar on the chart. we have about 10 million square feet of capacity for growth for office space. this plan would bump backed up by 2.5 million square feet of capacity. it does not get us up to the 20 million square feet that we think we would need, but it gets us 20% of the way there. the department is undertaking other efforts to look at other potential augmentations for the job capacity of the downtown. this is an incremental process. this plan is one component of the overall picture. when it comes to housing, we do have very substantial housing capacity due to recent planning efforts to meet the original

forecast. we have more than enough housing capacity under current zoning. that concludes the details on the jobs and housing picture. i am happy to answer any questions. the next topic that the commission asked us to go into was regarding potential shadow impacts in the downtown as a result of development. this analysis is all contained in the draft eir, which was published in september. i will be going over what it says the impacts will be of these buildings. the plan area itself, which is south of market, does not contain any part properties -- park properties.

the closest open space is some distance from the plan. at union square, st. mary's, they are 2000 or more feet from any of these buildings that would be built. some are substantially greater than half a mile away. what that means is that while some of these shadows may reach some of these spaces, they do so in fairly limited instances. it happens in the early morning hours. when the sun is low in the sky and the shadows are cast very long. that means the shadows move swiftly. by the time the sun is rising, buildings are some distance away, so these shadows are sweeping across portions of those open spaces. in addition to the limited duration and extent of the

shadows, there is a physical reality that is not captured in the technical analysis. the shadows will be -- is not as if these buildings are adjacent to these open spaces and casting dark shadows. they are some distance away. that is something that is not captured in the analysis. the potential and >> described in the eir are likely to be overstated. -- in the eir -- the potential impacts described in the eir are likely to be overstated. what the eir did was to take

boxes of some reasonable bulk and project them up to heights in the plant. -- in the plan. the shadow impacts are likely to be more crude and overstated. we will all work together with the sponsors to minimize any shadow impacts to the maximum extent possible. to run through the four major open spaces. the first -- this is the only open space where some of the new shadow would not be in the early-morning hours. this would be in the early afternoon. up on the screen, you see two images. this shows already shattered

might fall on a particular minutes -- shadow might fall on a particular minute. this is a useful way to grasp at the totality and the perspective on the overall amount of the shadow that might be cast by these buildings. it creates a simple grid. 100% of the potential sunlight, the blue shading is the existing shadow load on that open space. the plaza is covered by shadows, 37.6% of the year during the daylight hours. combined, all the buildings in the planning area, 0.1% additional shallowed to the 37.6%.

one thing to note about the plaza, if you look closely, one of the primary buildings that reaches the park is the transit tower. it is the crown of the tower that is reaching the open space. we believe we can substantially address this issue. per the calculation, they're both theoretically be some shadows. in terms of union square, potential shadow, 5 and 60 minutes a day depending on the days of the year. mid-spring to early fall. the potential additional shadows would be 0.2%. the park would have a shot of 38.5%. if you look at the graphic, the

shadows would hit the southwest and northwest corners of the park. that time of day, that is the time in which the shadows would fall. sometimes, it is as little as five minutes. at most, there is a one-hour window. portsmouth square, early- morning, 30 minutes up to one hour. in the late fall and a very early winter. the potential saving is about 0.4%. added to the 39% that is there now. the last open space is st. mary's square.

similar to portsmouth square, it would be affected the same months of the year. late fall to early winter. maximum duration of 20 to 30 minutes in the early morning. that potential shadow is quite small, 0.09%. there is a chart to in the eir, it is quite complex with a lot of information, it summarizes all these numbers. there is about five open spaces that are potentially affected. they all have a very small potential shading, less than 0.01%.

some of these parts do not have quantitative windows set for them. some do. the deliberation on those limits would come before the planning commission's in the future. lastly, again, to emphasize the plan itself would help create substantial amounts of open space downtown either directly or through funding assistance. the plan would result in the creation of over 11 acres of a new open space. on top of that, it would provide over $30 million of additional funding for open space improvements -- $13 million of additional funding for open space. there'll be additional funding to improve some of these open spaces.

let me turn it over for a couple of minutes to bob. he will walk you through some of the questions on the transit center itself. >> thank you, commissioners. it is a pleasure to be here with you again today. to give the one update on where we are, both are project schedule and funding status, and i wanted to take the opportunity to thank the planning department and the planning staff for the work they have done. the diagram on the screen and shows the components of the program. the overall scope of the program is broken into two phases. those phases are structured on the availability of funding.

in the first phase, we first constructed the temporary terminal, which is the turquoise box. that is where we relocated the bus operations when we began construction of the old terminal. also in the first phase, we will be constructing the transit center building itself at first and mission streets. the bus ramps connecting the transit center back to the bay bridge to a storage facility between second and third streets underneath the west approach to the bay bridge. that facility will be for the transit buses to lay over during the day rather than heading back to the east bay. the second phase of the program includes the downtown rail extension, which begins at seventh and townsend and drops below undercount in st. and

moves on to second street and up into the transit center. it will also include the finished out of the lower two levels of the transit center for rail operations. you see a cross section of the transit center that we are designing. there are five levels, plus the rooftop park. the lowest to levels -- two levels, part of phase one, so that we can fit them out for real operations in phase two. the ground level occupies almost four city blocks. there is a mezzanine level but has some backup functions. the elevated bus? -- bus deck. and then the park on top of the

transit center. just a few renderings on the status of design. this is an image on the south side of the station, which would be converted to a pedestrian mall. an image of the transit center with the rooftop park. our phase one construction schedule includes the portion we are currently engaged in, the excavation portion of construction. if you have been down to the site recently, the west end, we are down about 20 feet below. we will be continuing the excavation from west side to the east side of the transit center. late this year, we will begin construction of the below grade portions of the transit center,

bringing that structure back up to grade, and erecting the steel superstructure of the building. from there, we will move into the exterior closures, the landscaping, interior finishes, and the side work. at the bottom portion of the screen, i have been dtx construction. i showed that as starting late 2014. that is how quickly we can move into phase to if we're able to fully fund phase two. from there, it will be about a seven-year period. here is another image of the downtown extension, the importance of the transit center in bringing both caltrain and california high-speed rail passengers to the downtown core.

as compared with the existing caltrans station vacation. here you see an image of the real extension over the old 1863 shoreline of san francisco. down along townsend st., we will be excavating in what was the former mission bay, and moving along third street going into the land side of the old shoreline into the western end of the transit center. as you can see from this image, the transit center overlaps the old shorelines into -- over last the old shoreline. the images on the left are representative images of the types of construction we will be using to construct the tunnel.

we'll be using a cut and cover construction approach. once we reach a third street, from there, moving on to second street, we will be using a mined tunnel approach. in terms of funding, of course, phase one of our program is fully funded. on the left, the myriad of funding sources that have gone into making that possible. important to that are the properties that were given to the city to help execute this program. the tax increment that will flow from them, but also san francisco stimulus funding. on the left-hand side, we have about $600 million of identified

and committed funding towards the face to -- phase two program. these are only committed funding and resources to the program. revenues that might flow from the transit center district plan would help close that gap. the other recent component and fully funding phase two is a regional mou that has been developed to address a number of high priority high-speed rail related projects. including caltrain electrification, and positive train control, the downtown extension, and other upgrades

along the alignment. as part of that mou -- the parties include tjpa, the city and county of san francisco, high speed rail authority, and the city of san jose. the benefits and importance is that it reaffirms some existing commitments, the designation of the dtx in resolution 3434. it commits all the parties to the mou to develop and

implement a regional strategy is used to fund these priority projects. one of those is -- one of those is to designate the dtx as a new starts project. it will put it in line for participation in the federal new starts program, one of the most significant potential funding sources for transit-related projects. it adopts, for the first time, a regional strategy to fully fund the dtx. the future of the mou is there was a hearing that was held before the mtc planning committee in april.

it will go to the full commission two weeks from now with the final being brought for adoption in mid-2013. that would establish the position in the new starts stream. that concludes my portion of the presentation. i will be here for questions that you might have. >> thank you. >> i will walk you through the actions before you today. a high-level overview of what is contained in the documents. again, today, we are initiating a general plan amendment, planning code amendments, with the exception of those that were initiated yesterday. the zoning map amendments, with the exception of the preservation act amendment

initiated yesterday. there are two other items that do not require a initiations, but will be before you on the 24. administrative code amendments. today, it is just the general plan. in terms of the general plan amendment, what it contains is the new transit center district said area plan of the downtown plan. it is a distillation of the draft plan document which has been a major artifact of this planning process to date. the plan supplement, of which we submitted to you before the last hearing. pat robertson's the basic narrative and all of the background deliberate -- that represent the basic narrative and all the background deliberations. we have distilled the core

objectives and policies and created a sub-area plan. it is already covered by the downtown plan. that represents the general plan amendments before you. there are some additional minor map and text amendments proposed for the downtown plan, the transportation element, the design element, and the land use index. they provide consistency across the general plan and the appropriate cross references come out of state maps to reflect -- references, update this maps. there is one policy which we are proposing to add to the plan,

which has not been before you. there is an additional sheet, which we just distributed at the beginning of this hearing. it relates to public access to the transit center park. last time we were here, there was a lot of discussion and concern amongst the commissioners that the plan required edges to access to the transit center park to ensure the public has all the necessary access to activate and take advantage of this major public resource. we are proposing to add some additional text under objectives 3.11, describing the importance of thepark. these will have to be renumbered

for the final draft. insure that highly visible and welcoming means of access are provided directly for iraqi public spaces and buildings adjacent to the transit center. mission square is a very important public space. it is expected that there is public access from the spaces and buildings to the transit center park. such access requires close coordination with the tjpa. everybody needs to work cooperatively to make these things happen. it would be good to note that this is part of the proposed sub-area plan text before you. moving on to the planning code, i want to walk through what the

different amendments seek to achieve. first, amendment to a series of sections that convert to a squad the special -- quasi-special used district to a zoning district, a clarification to the confusion that was in the code before. to create a new commercial special used district that requires that large development sites should be -- should have a majority office space and them. next is a set of amendments to revise the far controls. revise the rules regarding the purchase of tdrs. there is a grouping that relates to the urban design controls,

relating to measurement of heights, tower separation, street walls, setbacks, all the various urban design controls that we have discussed. we are amending sections related to public open space. section 138 is the primary section that is being amended. it is related to open space. to allow and encourage adjacent developments to connect to the transit center part and count that towards the open space requirements. there is a series of amendments in article 1.5 related to modifying the rules for of st. automobile parking, bicycle parking, loading, parking lots, as well as changing and expanding the rules requiring participation in the

transportation brokerage program. the only new sections being added all pertain to impact fees. those are all being added to article 4. new open space impact fee that would apply to the planning district. there is also a new section being added related to participation in the proposed district. there are amendments related to renaming the current and new montgomery-second street conservation district. that is under the planning commission's purview to initiate. as well as amending article 11 to change the boundaries. the other amendments -- there were also before the commission yesterday. the process -- the only

amendments being proposed are the addition of some cross references to some of the new provisions being added throughout the planning code. lastly, the zoning map amendments. there are four amendments proposed. the first is to the basic zoning district map. the primary change is a very basic one, to reclassify all the parcels in the planning area. it would the exception of the publicly is zoned parcels -- with the exception of the publicly-zoned parcels. there is the change to the special use district map to reflect the boundaries of the new district. there are amendments to the height district maps. height district maps. we are creating a new bull we are creating a new bull