floors are an important part of the character and i hope they are supporting the housing above. it is an important issue for this mixed use neighborhood. if i had my ideal -- if i had all the money in the world, i'd buy these buildings up and make them permanently affordable but i don't have all the money, so i just have my wish, but when you go to other cities, particularly when you go to europe and you see buildings of this beauty and they are beautiful, above the ground floor, they generally have plaque in them and your attention is drawn to them and that's my big problem is how do

you make people appreciate these buildings and they are wonderful buildings. and i'm hoping that the owners of the ground floor will figure out a way or maybe you can figure out a way. thank you very much. >> any additional public comment? >> commissioner antonini. >> i agree with the comments and i agree that these are very consistent with the three criteria. in fact, they are the essence of the criteria of the first one is providing housing to meet the city's regional housing needs, transit corridors and my understanding is most of these buildings contain housing in the upper units almost exclusively, it's pretty much all retail, i think the rest have housing and you

already said that they're consistent with the general plan for the reasons stated and then the final one was the sustainable communities and what's more sustainable than keeping what we've already got and not having to tear it down and build something new, so it seems that this is extremely well thought of and these are beautiful buildings and i agree also with ms. esther the ground floors need a little work because often we assess the character of a building and we don't -- or maybe are distracted by its beauty by what may be going on in the first floor, perhaps not the use but works well with the building itself or is appealing in and of *it for people to be drawn to the thing but that's an ongoing process and as things hopefully begin to become more economically viable along market particularly, this part of market, these buildings will be the centerpiece and i hope they're the template of what's built to fill in the

vast spaces that exist around these and we have con tech churl architecture that fits in nicely with these buildings as a model. >> commissioner borden? >> yeah, i walk by these buildings almost every day, i live a couple of blocks from here and i'm wondering if this will impact -- will it require new requirement for these building owners typically at the ground floor level? does this provide any sort of way to -- does it provide new guidance for how they treat the ground floor and have there been tax credits or other things that can help them create better ground floors? >> becoming landmarks will allow building owners to take advantage of various tax credits through facade easement programs and the availability of the mills act. there are no other sort of

direct financial incentives that the city has at this time, but the planning department staff is always available to help with design and we do frequently do story placements and having done this research, we have the original plans for a restoration program if that's available to them. okay, we have devised a mechanism whereby store fronts are the review of alterations of store fronts are handled at a staff level through an administrator's certificate of appropriateness to minimize the importance of public hearings. >> i imagine you notified the property owners that we're doing this, will they get

notification about the tax credit program because i think it miekt incentivize some of the property owners to do this, they have obscured store front levels which i know is in violation of the planning code and whether or not we can look at an enforcement around those sorts of issues. >> the planning department did look at a few other properties, first of all, we are going to be notifying the owners of the actions taken at the various commissions. we have sent by mail a lot of information about preservation incentives and have met one on one with just about all of the owners to go over each one of those and answer any questions they had, and in terms of other

buildings that could contribute to this district or could benefit from some of the things we're learning from this district, the discontiguous district, there's possible that additional buildings be add today it so long as they immediate the criteria. >> just to better understand because i have another building that i'm thinking of on the block, there's a different style of this building and probably a different architect, but because they're in that district, do they get some of the benefits that some of the other properties are because they're in a historic district or do they have -- >> at a discontiguous district, only the building that are designated, adjacent buildings are not designated. >> great, thank you. >> commissioner sugaya? >> yes, as far as the ground floor activities, maybe you can

enlist former supervisor daily because he is the proprior -- proprietor of the tax tavern, so i think this is good. i think this is the first one we've done under the new ordinance, or is this a recommendation between hbc and the planning commission, i'm particularly glad it's non-controversial and i think credit goes the planning staff on that. i had one observation when i was looking on google street view and i'm sort of familiar with the area anyway but had to refresh myself because there are a number of smaller one storey or two storey buildings in here that don't meet the criteria under this particular district, but i hope don't get lost in the process here, and i'm sure if there are activities that come along, it

will be caught through the environmental review process sxr the planning staff, so i just want to have people recognize that these aren't the only buildings that i think could possibly have historic significance in this same area and i'll go ahead -- what's the proper motion, move to recommend to the board of supervisors the approval of discontiguous marketplace. >> second. >> commissioner wu? >> i'm also supportive of the district, but being newer, i wanted to ask whether historic designation increases a property owner's cost to upkeep the building and whether or not that could be passed on to tenants? >> the cost to maintain a building should not be any different than they are currently and the rules and regulations through the rent control ordinance are not affected by designation.

>> commissioner moore? >> i'd like to say that this is not only non-controversial, but i think it is looking ahead at the right time as it anticipates or precedes the envisions the process of market street. the more we really establish what's important on market street, it's not just the paving surface and the event notes but the building that speaks to the history of market street, the form of it, something which will have a long legacy, so thank you. >> could you call the question, please. >> okay, commissioners, the motion on the floor is for approval of recommending the landmark designation for the market street masonry discontiguous district. on that motion, commissioner

antonini? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya? >> aye. >> thank you, commissioners, the vote is unanimous for approval. commissioners, you are now on item number 14. case number 2011.0148e, minnie and lovie ward hayfields ren novation, 650 capitol avenue, >> good afternoon, president fong, i'm [inaudible] joining me today is [inaudible] from record parks, the item before you is for the preliminary mitigated negative deck lar attesting, the project proposed by rec and park includes the replacement of a 6 acre grass turf playfield with synthetic

turf, an installation of 6.1 acre public sports facility, the planning department published a pmnd, the department received an appeal letter from kelly watt ts, it includes about human health risks from the use of synthetic turf products, exhibit a in your packet addresses each packet, similar comments as those described in this appeal for the final eir for the beech l.a. project, an appeal to the board of supervisors was filed on june 12, 2012. on july 10, 2012, the board of supervisors denied the appeal and affirmed the certification

by the planning commission from a vote of 10-1, the pmnd relies on a number of studies to determine potential health risks. many of these studies were commissioned by municipalities in an effort to determine the assessed risk, inhalation, they were found to be less insignificant and the conclusions in the eir were the same, staff believes there's no substantial evidence that has been present that a warrant of presentation of the eir and recommends that the planning commission adopt the [inaudible] this concludes my parenting. if you have no questions, i'll turn it over to dan from rec and park. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon, commissioner, dan mauer with the parks and recreation department, as mr. lewis mentioned, this was certified back in february, i thought it was be important that myself as a representative for the department steps forward and tables talks about how important it is for us. there's a brief presentation, about 9 or 10 slides. back in 2004, we did an independent study looking at our recreation study, we found at that point in time that we were 35 soccer fields and 30 baseball fields or softball fields short to meet demand back then, it has escalated tremendously. most of that is seen after school during fall and spring where we have an excess of 4 thousand kids who come out of the pools and utilize our park

fa sits, between 4 and 7 o'clock briefly, so back in 2006, we were approached by city fields who we have been partnered with since then to look at reduce or increase the field use for san francisco park users and the goal is basically to get better use out of our existing facilities and after much evaluation at that time, we determined there was a three prong approach to doing that, one is to renovate -- or target specific facilities in our system with synthetic field and field lights, to date, we've completed 13 fields at 7 facilities throughout the city and all have been a terrific addition to our recreation program. why minnie and lovie ward, we

did one of our projects where we renovated a recreation facility, some other auxiliary elements but we didn't have the funding to renovate the athletic field, you can see the field condition which is just below is in pretty bad condition and you can see the on-site photo there. poor drainage, limited resources to maintain it and a lot of use at the facility make for a very difficult and problematic field for us. more use and more play, when this field gets renovated, we're going to anticipate that we're going to see double the play time out there. currently we see about 1700 hours of play time and 3500 of baseball and softball, when we're done with the project, we expect about 3500 hours of new

ground sports play and approximately 3600 hours of baseball and softball, doubling it like this in a neighborhood like this is going be a tremendous asset and the athletic programs around the city. the next slide, you can look at that, it's hard to read, it's basically a site plan which is key, we're proposing as part of the project, as i mentioned, pretty straight forward, we've had success installing synthetic field and lights, creating a multiuse field, right now people look at it as a baseball field, we're able to get multiuse sports out there, we're looking at men's and women's soccer, lacross, football, softball, baseball, all on this multiuse facility. it gives the community and the rec and park department great

opportunity to provide programming and recreation, other elements we're proposing is we're going fix the backstops, add bike parking, drinking fountains, recycled cans, fresh and up to par with some of our other projects, and with that, i'm going conclude the presentation and the staff report and leave the project on the ground. thank you. >> thank you, i have one speaker card, kelly watts.

>> we have a video, no audio, i'm the appellant for this, the primary point that i make in support of my appeal is in regards to the particulate cancer connection, the pmnd failed to address this and the planning department's response to my appeal disregarded submitted reports that addressed this problem, no fees mitigating were offered, the primary component is carbon black, it is listed by the state of california to cause cancer or birth defects, from over 300 chemicals identified

in carbon black, 8 appear on the list of chemicals known to cause cancer. exposure to five of these chemicals increase lifetime cancer risks, carbon black was add today the list of substances known to the state of california to cause cancer, it is a petroleum derivative, the international agency on research on cancer concluded that there is a carbon black cancer connection. the pmnd contains reports that 200 to 300 different sbr carbon black voc's have yet to be identified, the authors have dismissed the scientific findings as inconsequential, they think it's less than

significant. if this project were to use lead paint, it would be considered significant and that's because just one single rising, the lead, regardless of the amount of lead, if this project was to use pressure treated wood, it would be considered a considerable risk because of the arsenic, they contain a breakdown into mercury, sdoc's and a long list of slow acting poisons, for the record, i feel it should be one's personal choice whether one plays in it, installations are still legal, but i appeal this document because i feel that it's not just our civic responsibility but our moral responsibility to make an attempt to full disclosure to all of the innocent users of

these fields and the neighbors that will be forced to live next to them including an elementary school 7 days a week, finding the impacts of replacing grass for carcinogens [inaudible] there are clear and scientific and medically irrefutable grounds for findbacker finding of insignificance. thank you. >> thank you, any additional public comment? >> good afternoon, commissioner, my name is dan weaver, i'm speaking as a resident, one who was involved in the long effort to replace

the clubhouse recreation center buildings at this site and that was disappointed that playfield couldn't be included, one of my concerns is the lighting and to explore that, i was given a tour of the crocker amazon playfield by dan mauer and the other project sponsor from the non-profit organization involved here and i found the lighting tor quite sphere yor to other lighting i've seen in lights, not to mention other street lights i've seen in the city, and although it provides fine lighting for the playfield, the sidewalk surrounding the playfield are not overly lit, there's no light intrusion at all so there's nothing coming

through people's windows who live around the project and this is lighting that is needed at this location for when the playfield are not functioning to provide safety to the periphery sidewalk areas to the park. given that experience and that research, i think that this project is appropriate and would be well welcomed in the neighborhood and in the city as a whole. thank you. >> thank you. any further public comment on this item? >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is mary harris, i'm president of the district 11 council and my president in all my neighbors in action, a couple of years

ago, [inaudible] to one of our community meetings, we had been a part of the crocker amazon fumes renovation and we were pleased at the results of that renovation. actually, we're kind of jealous to tell you the truth, and so we asked to be added to the list. we had been involved in the rebuild of the minnie and lovie rec center and it has changed dramatically. the whole atmosphere of our recreation center previously, we had a bad reputation of drug dealing and gambling and other issues at our park, and since then, people have come and visited and have remarked on what a difference, what a change, and now the leagues and

the teams that have previously stayed away want to come back, but when they look at our fields, it is really abysmal, we have a rusted fence that sags, we have faultily irrigation, gofer holes, it's a hazard to sprained ankles and all kind of things, we have a cargo shed that is unsuitably, it's huge, our bleachers, our field, all this would disappear, storage, everything that we wanted and this would complete for the community the recreation center. this would be the final thing to make it complete, and we ask that you uphold the preliminary negative dec, and we talked to

our supervisor who studied it in other cities, the health impact, and he said all the reports he got, it wasn't as significant as it's being represented, the mayor supports our proposal for the renovation, assembly woman fiona came out so we have a lot of support for this. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is al harris and i would like to echo what my wife said, we worked hard to get this, i was on the original city fields task force and when they gave a list of parks that they were going to do, they said they had walked to every park in the city for a soccer field, the first thing i said is what about ocean view and they had missed it so now it looks like they're going

finally get this field, i hope you will support it. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, my name's kay rodriquez and i lived in this community and the ocean view area for 45 years and i just want to say that in the 45 years, the community has changed a lot, more latin families, more asian families, more people concerned about fitness, being active and i know live ining that community, there are not enough places for our children to run around safely or our teenagers to play a drop-in football game, soccer game in a society where we're trying to get our kids outdoors, engaged outdoors socially, i think ocean ground has been neglected in that area as far as an outdoor space for

our kids, so i am as a parent very concerned about the chemicals that are in the ground, it's news to me also, but knowing that this kind of surface, this ground is put around in all different parts of san francisco and different cities too, i still have to do my research, but i do promote an area that a -- allows our kids a place to get out and get active in our community. >> thank you for your time? >> thank you. any further pub lek comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner sue -- sugaya. >> yes, this is prompted because the last speaker said it gives kids a new opportunity to play in the new facility.

based on what we heard on beach l.a., this new facility is going to be totally fenced, isn't it? >> yeah, the current facility has fencing on three sides, we're going to replace the facility pretty much in-kind, there are no gates and it won't be locked, it has fences to keep balls in play but again open to the public and that's the beauty of synthetic turf, we can't allow the public out there 24/7, the park closes but we can utilize the fields at that level. >> commissioner antonini? >> and the comments of commissioner sugaya bring up another question and that is, while the lack of fencing in some areas and allow access of pick-up games is a good thing, but the bad thing is it