>> borden. >> aye. >> can't vote no. * >> good afternoon, members of the commission. department, staff. before you is a project to propose and construct mixed-used building on 48 residential units, 2,750 square feet of retail, 24 off-street parking spaces and one commercial parking space. please note plans are circulated and erroneously contain two commercial spaces and one will be eliminated. the projects on former parcel b in market octavia plan has three frontage, market and 8th. accessed primarily from octavia frontage adjacent to project site. the commission will be considered conditional use authorization request for development of the lot exceeding 10,000 square feet, for off-street parking access for the octavia boulevard frontage road. selected as winner of

request for proposal competition in the economic and workforce development in 2007. this consists of representatives from the community and planning department. the design is several parcels. octavia from market to pell. goal is define projects for the former parcel sites that complemented octavia and design standards for the former parcels. at the time of competition the project was thought to embody these goals. project is designed for the ground floor retail on the octavia corner and frontage to market street and intended to serve as part of larger transition from larger buildings from central market to smaller in the market. market street is also intended to serve as a visual focal point in the gateway of octavia boulevard. five-story front onto the haight street frontage with three to five story

residential with full lot coverage. build log be broken down into three along octavia and clad in the glass curtain wall with vertical sun shades. project amendments building across octavia is first baptist church, keeping a consistent roof height across the length of project as it goes out from market to haight street. several have submitted formal endorsements, including the haight valley neighborhood, spur coalition, em meers against of upper market and castro and lgtb community center. 67th haight submitted letters of concerns, the properties and size of project, reception of sunlight by solar panels of 67haight, lack of parking and concerns regarding safety of 67 haight during

* central construction. a safety plea bargain will be implemented with dbi and planning department. walking, biking and public transit is encouraged, maximum 5 to one for residents in the units, project following. city laws does not protect on installation in terms of sunlight reception. in the analysis staff has found that project would be respectful to certain belts by proposing the five-story mass on haight with environment shorter and larger eight-story will be at market street, buildings larger. masses along octavia have been broken up to make mimic a side. staff recommends approving requests for lot larger than 10,000 square feet. [ indiscernible ] staff recommends commission approves conditional

parking access off octavia frontage road since appears to be the best access. access from market not allowed by code. existing on the south edge of haight street will be changed for transit-only for inbound buses allowed from parking from haight. the department has many other aspects would be necessary and compatible with neighborhood and further recommends you approve for following reasons. project would add 40 units to walkable, transit-rich area for dense-use development. the project would add utilities permanent on the gateway corner. project would improve pedestrian realm, especially along market street. would provide seven on-site bmr and fulfills the intent of market area to focus new housing and transit,er locations and create street escapes. this concludes my presentation. ken from ddt is in

attendance and provide further details in terms of the rfp and sales of the former central freeway parcel. this concludes my presentation. i will be available for questions, thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon commissioners, ken rich with office of economic and workforce development. we are happy to see another octavia project for approval. i thought i would take for a moment to review the development program and where we are with it. based on a 2000 agreement with caltrans, the elevated under the city, the city was obligated to develop these properties and use the proceeds to pay for the construction of octavia boulevard, as well as several other purposes related to the new boulevard. before completion of market octavia plan the city sold a number of these parcels, mainly to redevelopment agency for affordable housing. of the seven parcels sold in early days to the redevelopment agency, four have already been developed

and have received recognition for their innovative design. it is also worth noting when all is said and done and all parcels developed, about 50% of all residential units developed on the formal central parcel also be affordable units. while market octavia plan was developed, our office sponsored a design competition to stimulate ideas on excellence in design along the boulevard. once the plan was adopted and gave guidance on standards in the area the city went about disposing other remaining 11 parcels. four of these, including the one before you today, were the subject of an rfp issued in the year 2007, which sought innovative design proposals. the others included parcel p on former on-ramp parcel, approved by you a couple months ago and parcels m and n, the very skinny parcels along the east side of the boulevard south of

fell street. those are still being negotiated in terms of a sale agreement. of these remaining parcels we look forward to completing all the property sales in the next few months. seeing boulevard completely built out with innovative in-fill architecture within the next couple years. returning back to the project in front of you today, parcel v as we call it, is one of the most prominent along the boulevard. by way of a little history this is the subject of an rfp in 2007, requesting proposals that would provide design solution for certain key parcels on the boulevard. the responses to the rfp were evaluate bid staff from the mayor's office, wwd, the planning department and the community on the basis of design excellence as well as price. this project was selected for this site. due to the downturn in the economy it's taken much longer than expected to complete many of these purchase agreements, including this one.

we finally did complete a purchase agreement for this parcel about a year ago, are thrilled it is finally ready to be approved today. we believe the project will be of tremendous contribution to the neighborhood and look forward to seeing it under construction. thanks very much. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you. project sponsor. >> good afternoon, president fong, commissioners, my name is mark mcdonald. i'm a principle with em development, a local * san francisco development firm. it is my distinct pleasure to present for your review 8 octavia in the market octavia neighborhood. we are here with ddt partners, co-developing the project with us. together our group has a strong commitment to the market octavia neighborhood. we are developing three projects here, including 8 octavia, which will fulfill the market vail of the

octavia plan and revitalize the neighborhood after the removal of the central freeway. our offices are located in the neighborhood in haight valley, close to three. our project manager craig hamburg lives in the neighborhood and led the 128-unit development. as ken rich articulated earlier our project in octavia began in 2007 when mayor's office of cousing sponsored a design competition to promote high-quality housing along octavia. stanley won the competition with an innovative and striking design. in 2011 we acquired the interest and have worked closely with mayor, housing and planning and community to define the design and create an outstanding mixed-use project that will serve as a vibrant gateway to the market octavia neighborhood. this will bring numerous benefits to the neighborhood and fulfill the vision of the market octavia plan. please indulge me as i go through some of the more

significant benefits. i will take a site which has attracted crime and vandalism and transform it to a new landmark. will it bring positive activity both during the day and night. it will add residents to patronize local businesses, boost the local economy. it will will add 48 housing units with a good mix of one, two, three-bedroom units where over 70% are multi-family units suitable for families. it will add seven bmr on-site to better integrate affordable housing into the community and limit parking to.5 spaces to promote public transit over private vehicles. it will have 26 bike stalls to support most transportation other than cars. will it add two dramatic retail spaces to activate pedestrian realm on octavia and market street. it will be environmentally sensitive by storm water collection capability into

the features and maximize energy efficiency by using sun shades for solar heat gain. it will create high density housing in a transit-rich area that has more than a dozen city and mass regional transits. the project enjoys broad support from the community. we have strong endorsements and letters of support from the valley neighborhood association, san francisco action coalition, spur, merchants of upper market in castro, lgbt and neighbors at parcel p. we have shared plans with the san francisco bicycle coalition. as well we have met numerous times with individual property owners and businesses nearby including our immediate neighborhoods to the east. we ask for support as recommended by the planning department. we believe the city can be very proud of this project, the benefits it will bring to the burgeoning neighborhood and elegant and striking statement it will make as a gateway to the city. thank you for your consideration of this project. we will be available to answer questions afterwards. we are pleased to introduce

our architect, who will present the project's design, thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm standing as an architect. as you have heard -- can we have the slides? thank you. as you have heard, this project began in 2007. and in the years since, there's been continuous development working with planning staff, neighbors and community groups through many iterations. the input has helped to significant refine, develop and improve the design. the project we're presenting has the benefit of this long incubation. some of the most significant changes that have occurred during this development includes the creation of a double height commercial space at the

corner of market and octavia. increasing the active use along the octavia boulevard and corner of haight. removing the fire house and reducing parapet and adding windows to provide for detail and articulating the eastern facade with windows and material and color changes. this was the site when the freeway came down. this is the site today. the freeway and sight as it appears today. the gateway is important, where 101 terminates at market and where the new octavia boulevard ends in the really beautiful new park. which has become this

sitting community spot in the neighborhood. here we have the situation and our project. the intention of creating these these book-ends which defines the gateway, by maintaining the same height along each of the streets. we also want to give recognition to the significance of the church, by allowing its dome to exceed the height but making the corner lines sort of parallel gateway elements. the corner itself is articulated with this commercial space, two-storeys in height, which as i mentioned was created by removing a unit in this evolution of the project. on market street this is

the entry to both the commercial space and the residential lobby of the project. with a little triangular green space, which is also a bench and provides a kind of respite along that piece of land. also acts to collect storm water, which we intend to do on the entire sort of sidewalks around, using this permeable surface. kind of an interesting evolution of market street with the significant and contemporary at market and dolores, market and eighth, so there is sort of a new language evolving to mark these corners of market street.

here you see the presence of our building and the way that it starts as a 75-foot, eight-story building. through the shift in topography, changes to the neighborhood, the 54-feet building at the haight corner. these are some of the other views on market street. the organization of the building is based on the idea of vertical yard, which the housing surrounds. it is taking the traditional format and translating it into a new kind of scale and a bigger sort of development. these are the vertical yards, which organized the housing units. every house actually has access to this outdoor courtyard as it moves through. though the market octavia

plan doesn't require rail yard, we have provided 25% relief to the coverage of the lot. this allows us to actually articulate and carve up the building in the way aaron mentioned, so it shifts the scale to pieces more in keeping of the adjacent side of the street. as a gateway building at the entry of the city, we asked ourselves what the contemporary version of this post card image of san francisco could be. rather than aesthetics, we chose to focus on performance. on this long west-facing facade, adjacent to a noisy boulevard, each inhabits and can control relation to the conditions through a system of adjustable louvers which mod lates

sight and sound. this concentrates an image of townhouses, with vertical elements which are are contemporary expression of texture and scale of traditional san francisco street escapes. steady of a mute style that is constantly changing, they reflect lives of inhabitants within. this is the market street corner. the blue area is the commercial space which wraps around a green courtyard. the white area is the elevator lobby, then the triangle is that green park that i showed you on the market street side. all of this is two-story. then the entry or slipway on octavia boulevard to the parking, again connection to upper level of lobby from that parking area. this is the articulation of

the active use at the other end of the site. it is basically a court yard in yellow. the blue area is a townhouse with a porch which gives access directly from the street to that unit. then a commercial space, which is entered off that courtyard. that whole area is quite an active piece. so the two ends have this connection to the street. these public uses. then the building as it moves and is organized around the vertical rail yards which shift through the building, the rooftop which is a common outdoor area shared by all inhabitants and private groups with upper level units. this is the elevation. you can see the shift from the 75-foot market street

more dimension of a neighborhood scale at haight street. the way the building is articulated as townhouses with the vertical dimension and breaks that cuts the building through. the way the units actually occurred, this would be a one-bedroom unit with access to the light court and kind of a view of the interior of that space. two-bedroom unit with its living room as large area but not tall. a very open plan with two bedrooms. the view looking through that back into the boulevard. then three-bedroom unit which we have three at the upper level, we basically have almost 82% of two bedroom or more so that most of the units are quite

large. just another view on the boulevard. if there are questions i would be glad to answer. >> thank you. there may be more questions for your later. opening it up to public comment, and i do have speaker cards. i will call a few at the time. if you want to land on this side, your right side of the room, would be great. ali shalbalanghe. >> thank you. >> i live up the street at 126 haight street. i get the privilege of actually seeing this project built finally. i'm here to express my full support. i hope you will too. i thank the sponsors and architect and mayor's office of housing for bringing the project to where it is today. its been a long haul. i trust hopefully soon we will see this built. thank you very much.

>> thank you. roden levitt, michael elder, many flores, jim orshal. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is robin levitt. i live about a block and a half of this project off octavia neighborhood and i'm a member of the neighborhood association. we are very pleased to support this project. this is consistent with the market octavia plan, which we worked so hard to realize. it does all the right things. we are particularly pleased the developer has chose en to build the bmr units on-site rather than off-site. that is a really good thing. we are also pleased that the developer has included some retail towards the haight and octavia corner. the market and octavia dozen vision that. once this is build out there will be ground floor retail spaces along the

boulevard, so we are happy to see that. we are pleased that the parking is within the recommendations of the market octavia plans. it is.5 spaces per unit or less. but we do have one concern with the parking access from the octavia boulevard street. there is a lot of bicycle traffic that crosses market. that is a significant bicycle path. we foresee some conflicts with the bicycle traffic there. we think maybe there is a way to improve that, maybe create a raised table at the entry to that side street from octavia to slow the traffic entry mat. i'm sure those can be worked out with the project sponsor. as noted, this is a very sitting site.

it is a gateway not only to our neighborhood but to the west side of the city. to the north side via octavia boulevard and to upper market and castro. so this is a very significant site. the gateway is very important here. i just want to -- i'm very pleased to see the building is consistent with the spirit of the san francisco prized design competition, which i worked very hard on. but the one thing i do want to mention is that perhaps there can be some exploration of a vertical element to mark this. right now it looks as if it serves as a gateway element but not an architectural element to reinforce that notion. those are some of the comments. otherwise we are very excited about this project.

this will help get back our neighborhood. we look forward to it being constructed. thank you. >> thank you. >> president fong, commissioners, good afternoon. my name is michael adler, the president of cana construction north income. i have been part of the construction community since 1978. * i'm excited about the project, not because it is monumental and luxurious and millennium or luxuriousness but because it is quent essentially san francisco. it is in the right neighborhood, beautifully designed and developed, and looked forward to folks that love the community. this is a perfect urban in-fill. looking at construction

costs eight octavia will create 13 million in labor economic benefit, creating more than 165,000 person hours of work. the equivalent of keeping in excess of 80 per year. i commend you for the collaborative effort and urge you to push this over the finished line with approval of conditional use request, thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioner, many flores, carpenters local 22. i'm here to the project request for local conditional use. it appears they have done their homework. strong support from the community. below market rate, parking spaces for auto and bike. that area is long overdue. we are excited about it. of course in addition, the

job creation. what is important is that the community and i'm told is very supportive of this. we look for your approval today. thank you. thank you very much. good afternoon, my name is jim worshel, with the haight valley neighborhood association and active on transportation and planning committee. for all the reasons mr. web detailed why we are so pleased with this project, i won't have to reiterate them, since they are fresh in your mind. again i'm here to show support for this project. developer and architect have done wonderful outreach. they have been a pleasure to work for. this is really a model of getting excellent design in key locations so i'm extremely enthusiastic. hope you approve it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ellen mark.

>> thank you. i'm allen mark, president of the mark company. couple things i want to cover. one, we do research really of what's going on in san francisco. presently there are only about 300 market rate condominium units. that excludes the area of candle stick. pretty much when you look at all the city, excluding candle stick, there are 300 units available. by the end of the year it will probably be down to about 200 units available. in terms of what's on the market that compares to even five years ago where there are 2,000 to 3,000 units available. in terms of what is under construction, 200 and inventory is down by half. unfortunately what that does cause is rapid depreciation with all the

job growth. more housing is needed. the great thing with eight octavia is it not only adds 48 housing units but seven are affordable. without the redevelopment agency i think will it be hard to see affordable housing. in addition, we all love this town. have great respect for great architects. too often we see buildings that end up being perfunctory or workforce . this is pivotal. market and castro and central market as well as leading octavia boulevard. so i commend the developer and also we have stanley sidowitz in this city. i think he is one of the great architects today. here he is creating really a magnificent building at