>> good afternoon, commissioners. i am a member of jordan park association and the president had submitted a letter with regard to the student housing legislation. i have a point here would like to make. mostly in regard to section 135b 2. for the minimum amount of open space required one-third the amount required. what i have to say about this is i understand there is some planning code that has one-third of the required open space, for instance, for senior housing and things like that. when you consider that since the student housing units will be allowed citywide and -- in low density areas like in rh1 an

drh -- and rh2, the quality of life would be impacted. the open spaces there. -- there for reason. they're not too many of these in town so i am talking about six city blocks for jordan part. people in these areas bought these homes for the open space that is allowed their and a lot of times, the low density parcels, the percentage of rear lot or private open space footage requirements are there and it has been a case of four. but when the use of student housing goes in and you have this one third open space requirement, it gets really small. it gets to the point where some of this starts to diminish and i am into open spaces and making sure the green area around lots that abut residential zone lots

do not start eating away at this said that is my main point for today. thank you very much. -- this. that is my point for today. >> good afternoon. i have comments on two areas. the first one is the open space requirements for small units. as i noted in my e-mail to you, i have lived in a small unit as a student and it worked because i had to outside space. i have observed aged relatives who are living in small units and it works because there is large, and space available as part of that senior housing. when you are reducing common

space are open space per unit to one-third of the current required amount in an nc3, the till -- takes you down to 12 feet of open space per unit. i was using the facilities at the pacific energy center. the stall is 20 square feet. that is not the handicapped stalled. that is the normal stock. if you're talking about permitting open space of 12 square feet per unit which is what one-third works out to in several districts, it is very small. that is quite possibly a reasonable strategy as long as there is supporting zoning for conditional uses that require outside space, a common space in the building. student housing is one thing but this 350-foot squaror less doest restrict itself to student housing. that changes the game and the

sensitivity and the impact on quality of life of residents in the city in a big way. it can be made to work but it needs more controls if it is going to go through. the second thing and i did not quite understand this correctly when i read it and i understand it now, having listened to the presentation. this conversion. i am concerned about this because student housing can go anywhere in the city. a one-year vacancy is pretty small. when you're looking at rent- controlled buildings in rh3, rm2, rm 3, rm4 districts, the incentive to get that building vacant, let it sit for year, and bring it in as student housing becomes very, very high because student housing is effectively market rate housing. the incentive to game the system

if you permit conversions throughout the city is very high. i can see several nice ways of doing it. it also provides the market from rent-controlled into student housing then perhaps reconversion to sale as coop or condos. really adverse opportunities there. thank you. >> i am here again, since the last time this was up. i want to focus on what this is all about. it was initiated legislation to follow up on former supervisor dufty's original ordinance to provide stimulus to build new student housing in san francisco. there are several projects.

there is one that is public and other people who are interested in doing that. without this clarification, those things cannot move forward. let me also remind you that nobody can build student housing without having a relationship with an institution and an agreement with them and the educational institution has to amend its master plan, which means they have to do the necessary environmental review and come before you before the student housing project can be prepared for moving forward. i mentioned to you last time that the illegal -- the description of the legal arrangements between the institution and a housing developer has to be flexible enough to accommodate the diversity of the two or three dozen institutions of higher education in san francisco.

they do not all have -- operate in the same manner and as i said before some do not want to own student housing, some do not want to operate student housing, some do not want to collect rent from the students. but they do want to have private parties, i suppose that could be nonprofits as well, develop new buildings they participate in designing for their students to accommodate their students' needs. some might be designed in a matter for younger students and some for older graduate students. there would be a diversity. supervisor wiener has supported legislation and it was drafted by george williams that loosened up the language. i cannot figure out legislatively or parliamentary whether that is before you or not. that language needs to be

incorporated in what goes forward to provide this flexibility so that we will get something built. and so i urge you to focus on what this is all about. this legislation has been burdened with collateral issues, sort of like barnacles that slow the whole process down. you should move the parts that do with building new housing and you should incorporate the language that the housing coalition and george has prepared. >>president fong: our next speakers. >> mr. president, members of the

commission. appearing for our university. i have given my staff -- your staff, they may have given you a brief one-page statement of weather watch talk about today. that is aau does not oppose the legislation in terms as it affects student housing. it is very, very concerned on the effect existing student housing it currently occupies and it would like to request a pipeline provision in the legislation -- they would like to request a pipeline provision in the legislation to allow 13 conditional use applications in 2007 that have been able to be processed through the condition at this date. they do represent properties that were formally presidential now being occupied by students at aau.

this is not an unusual type of provision where applications have been in place and the new set of code standards would not allow the application but it is desirable to allow those cases to come before the commission be decided on their own merit. we would not approve the housing that is there. you could look under the applications on their individual merits. aau has not been able to bring this before you because of an environmental impact report that has to be completed and that is to beef finish before all the applications we are talking about -- to be finished before all the applications we're talking about are completed. this is the same date of the legislation we are workigng

on. i should also note there has been concerned about -- concern about displacements. the president of the university indicates that no tenants have been displaced in order to make space for the students and their existing housing. it would not displace them in the future. the are -- commissioner moore: you are very hard to understand. i could not h ear -- hear you. >> the university has not displace any tenants in any of the buildings that they have been taken -- they have taken control of for student housing. they also would not displace any tenants in the future.

i might note -- they have indicated they do need additional student [inaudible] and it would try to accomplish that through the adaptive use of non-residential building such as hotels or buildings of that nature. president fong: thank you. >> i am appalled at the draft changes. i thought this was about trying to help have a new housing built and trying to protect the rental stuff that we have -- stock we have. this just wipes it out. you might as well not have passed anything at all if you think there would be protections with this, i have a hill to sell you. where thousands of units have been lost. we're all st. mary's -- where

all st. mary's has been fighting. later, it was the academy of our university and other schools. i walk by and i see the other schools there. not even to mention what happens if all the language schools are doing this, too. of course, there will be no evictions because no one goes to court to evict. they give people notices and people move. that is what happened and i -- i and i cannot tell you how many buildings. one building was like to begin its and i see more buildings that have -- happened afterwards. we had two buildings on jones streets that were emptied for demolition rather than this. one of them sat vacant seven years. he was willing until we actually beat him in court and

managed to resound. the other had won 10 and holding down the whole building for a number of years until he said we are giving in. people lost their homes -- one of the tendency was 52 years. we have many people who have lived in their apartments 22 years or 35 years. we had one man who killed himself in one of the buildings. he had lived there 35 years. other people in the building had done so. if you think the conditional use thing is going to work, it will not. the tenants will be gone. the building will be empty. the other people on the block will not know anything about it and u- -- unless oyou have nob hill buildings.

if there sro's that happened to be vacant, it is because the owner does not want to run it or it is too much for them. those of the ones that are -- the master lease program has worked on or that mt. profits could buy and operate as actual low-income housing which is what, we do not have any other races -- resources for it. it is unspeakable. >> thank you for allowing me to speak. i am kathy luper. we own and run the cadillac hotel in the tenderloin. we bought the hotel as private owners. we did not exchange -- we did an exchange of buildings and turned the cadillac over to become a

nonprofit. people thought we were crazy. who wants to live in the tenderloin? who will live here? you'll only have 20 residents. it is a 160-unit building and is full. we have a waiting list. we have waiting lists of people who are looking for affordable housing in the city. they're not all people with special use problems. they're not all mental patients, drug alex -- additsct, alcoholics. there no -- ordinary, everyday people who make $9 or $10 an hour and cannot afford to live anywhere else. if we start whittling away at these units of which are really a treasure, there really should be like landmarks that before you can take when you get away, you have to go through all kinds of hearings to do that. i think you need to think carefully. as i said, when we bought the

cadillac, it was compared to a very cheap hot dog. now it is like filet mignon. everyone wants them. we're looking at a real estate crisis in the city out -- in the city. it can almost afford to have a studio if you were living -- you can afford to have a studio. i beg you, think about losing these units and how it will affect the city as a whole and let's try to figure out how we can close the loopholes. thank you. president fong: thank you. neck speakers -- netxt speakers. >> i am working for the coalition on homelessness. i am a [unintelligible]

the coalition supports the commission -- seeking its original proposal to revamp to student housing. we are concerned about [unintelligible] depend on. basically, if you allow to the students to covert, we want -- will hit a lot of people, a lot of families. in san francisco, we have almost 500 families with children living in sro hotels. we have hundreds of seniors with disabilities who is staying in

hotels, too. they are affecting all this population and what happens? we do not want to have more homeless in san francisco. we want people in house. i recommend in that interview do not pass this legislation. please. because who are we affecting, affecting the families, it is affecting the seniors, it is not the way we can fix this problem. the other thing is, if we see in san francisco, we have a lot of empty housing units. you can say in the hundreds. what we do not focus on the empty housing units? why do we want to keep the sro hotels when we have families living there? what we have so many problems,

to monitor these hotels? please do not [unintelligible] this legislation. they can be affecting so many families and singles and women and men and seniors. thank you so much. president fong: our next speakers. >> good afternoon. i am the chair of the coalition for san francisco land use and housing committee. cafn support student housing that would produce new student housing and not by conversion from existing residential houses. there is a shortfall, 40,000 units of student housing in san francisco.

that is one issue. on the other issue, more importantly, what is the shortfall of housing for san francisco residents and also for commuters, employees that work in san francisco but cannot afford housing in the city? i would think that would surpass 40,000 units. i think that the need of student housing should not supersede the needs of residential affordable housing for the rest of san francisco residents. some of the -- some issues, some points. we're not opposed to student housing that has been built already prior to post secondary education institutions. in regards to the conversion of convents or other religious

facilities. they probably need more clarification expanded -- does it mean faculty or workers, we need clarification like that. i regard to l -- in regard to lots owned that area adjacent, what does adjacent mean? does it mean shared -- not abutting corners, that needs to be clarified. in regard to conversions, we're opposed to that and i regard to conversion of vacant homes or hotels, i think that is very dangerous and could lead to even bigger problems.

i think we are opposed to that, too. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i lived in university terrace which is adjacent to university of san francisco. i want to thank you for the work you have done to improve the city of san francisco. i want to thank ann marie rogers and supervisor wiener's office and the university of san francisco for their reports and i also want to thank the san francisco law library. i agreed with the adoption, your adoption of an amendment to prohibit conversions of existing housing to certain housing. the six months probation will not accomplish the goal you had set out when you had told

permanent prohibition. -- total permanent prohibition. ssro's. as i understand, some remarks made by sro's, there would be a replacement fund that involves moving a family. i would like to ask you to please not do anything with sro's. just let them be. another thing about supervisor wiener's amendments is they are too broad and not limited. for example, the word similar. everyone understands the validity of changing convents and monasteries into student housing. that seems fine. however, the phrase that would also change things that are similar religious order

facilities, there is already a very good description of religious order facilities in the planning code. the word similar makes it too broad. so please take the word similar out and leave in the words religious order facility. another these -- of these is the difference between adjoining versus directly adjacent. directly adjacent basically means nearby. the word for and supervisor wiener said he wanted to prohibit conversions when there is property touching or there is a share property line. the word for shared property line is adjoining. so why do we use this word or define it carefully -- why do we not use this word or define it carefully? thank you very much. whatpresident fong: additional

public comment? >> i am the director of the housing committee. i am also here to speak on behalf of the san francisco tenants union and i have a letter here from the chinatown community development center is well because our three tenant groups, i will put them here, all are taking the very same position which is that we should go back to the original proposal. the permanent ban on all types of conversion. i will explain a little white we housing rights feel that way -- why we housing rights feel that way. we haven't sro conversions -- we have this for important reasons.

including a recognition i think amongst the city that this is an extremely useful housing source for low-income people, people who do not have a lot of resources, for single adults and that it -- is housing of last resort of many types. even families. it has been city policy for many years that -- now that we do all we can to preserve this precious sro sloot -- units, some are really unique in design and character as well and have a really diverse population in there. so, it makes no sense to us, it

is a reverse in the polish -- policy that would have an amendment to allow for conversions of sro units and are concerned about those as well as being very much in contradiction with our sro ordinance is we are fearful we will lose rent control, in addition to tenants being displaced, we could lose that from our rental stock forever. it represents an erosion of the rent-controlled housing in our city which we all know does not provide for enough of the affordable housing needs that are out there, considering we have a great homeless problem. and we think it is of vital importance to preserve whatever

housing we have currently that is relatively affordable to people, still, and not to allow for and the slippery slope. the set set -- sets a bad precedent and -- this sets a bad precedent. this is not the proper tool to address the problems that were defined by supervisor kim's office and those proposing to have an exception on the conversion allowed for cesaire's for conditional use. -- allowed for conditional use. president fong: thank you very much. thank you. wha>> i was here in may and prepared --