close by. also in the current scenario affordable housing is remove. it's doubtful that the house could easily been converted to a home once it goes to commercial and the inside is guted and commercial restrooms are installed. no new family would embrace this project. please keep our neighborhood a community. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening commissioners. thank you for the opportunity. i also am a neighbor of the 281 hartford house? >> excuse me ma'am, could you state your name? >> joan leffler. i feel that taking this neighborhood i have been in 15 and it's an rh-1 zone neighborhood and turning it into a commercial venture is not the right thing to do.

i do think this are other properties that could well accommodate a child-care center. this is a 900 or 950-square-foot house and they want to put 21 kids. i'm also a real estate agent and i think it diminishes the value of the property because if a lot of people work at home these days and you will hear a lot of kids throughout the day. i had a house recently across from the school and the first question out of everybody's mouth is what about the school? how loud is it? if it's right next to you, it's very loud and all the way around there is a lot of neighborhood people that are concerned. so i hope that you don't pass it. i am sure that the polka dot school is very good and i know there is a lot of room and we need a lot of great teachers and item sure they are great, but i don't think it longs

belongs in the middle of a totally residential block. thank you. :good . good evening, i'm catherine mcdonald [speaker not understood] my house has retained its value and although there have noise coming off the mission high school football field it's generally children playing. it's not that disruptive. it's much less disruptive than the people walking down the front of the tv street. as the mother of two children who had the fortune of being

educated by sarah at the catherine michael school and polka dot she is an incredible mix of caring and nurturing, mentoring to her children. she was clear, respect the neighbors, be mindful that people live here and we always were. so although i understand the neighbors' concerns, i believe that the public interest here is served by adding a school to a community

that is underserved by schools and furthering san francisco's stated goal of developing the resources for families. encouraging families like mine to stay in san francisco. it's a difficult job that you have. but i am an administrative law judge across the street and i understand that there are times that we have to make decisions that serve the public interest and ask the owners of businesses to mitigate any negative impacts. sarah and lawrence are people of integrity who will do that. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening. my name is michelle long. thank you for allowing me to speak and i'm sorry for the late evening. i am a third generation native san franciscan. as a native, i have seen our

great city go through many changes and i know how difficult it to be people to see change ms. their neighbors. i am here to support polka dot, to make sure that changes are good for our community as a whole. my son graduated from polka dot and was very prepared when he entered school. my son is fourth-generation san franciscan. while growing up in the city with a working mom i was brought to our next door

neighbor's house for home daycare. it was a wonderful experience for me to be close to home, in my neighborhood and run by a caring person who had kids of her own. it was also affordable. i know this many concerns have been expressed by neighbors and i'm glad that people have the forum to express their concerns. they are a strictly neighborhood residential street. their current location is small and on a really narrow street. and parking even there was never an issue. the school and parents are very respectful of people's driveways. traffic use -- typically

they don't come at one time and the white zone would accommodate. i want to talk about the personal characters of sarah and lawrence. my son had sarah and lawrence as teachers. they offer a wonderful and loving alternative to child-care. it's difficult for working parents to find good child care and at a time when working familis are booing pushed out of our city, we need to look at this and take notice of a good quality educational environment. thank you. i think they will be a benefit to the neighborhood. thank you. >> i'm going to call three more cards. [ reading speakers' names ]

>> i am here to urge support of the polka dot school. i have known sarah stein for several years. that is where i saw firsthand the talent that sarah stein embodis and how she works with her children and the challenge of really wanting to learn really thrives. we followed sarah to polka dot preschool and my younger son attended throughout his years there, who just started kindergarten. and i attribute fully to sarah stein and polka dot that they

were both ready for kindergarten and thriving within an immersion program within the san francisco unified school district. it was lawrence and sarah that created that foundation for wanting to learn. i recognize there are concerns from the neighbors in potrero on harvard street. we have heard directly from the concerns through the community meeting around traffic, noise and parking. i think from the testimony you have already heard tonight sarah and lawrence take this very seriously. they are planners and as you saw from your planning packet, they have a plan to mitigate and be able to be a good neighbor in the potrero neighborhood. issues raised by michelle and cat, an additional consideration for the commission is what is state of children and families in san francisco? with only 13% of children in san francisco -- it's one of

the smallest populations across the country. what kind of message are we sending for children and families who want to stay in san francisco and raise -- to be able to stay for generations? i am really proud of the san franciscans investing in public housing, which has passed around our parks, building infrastructure and to me another key fabric to that is children. in closing building a school isn't only a dream for sarah stein, but a dream for families to live and thrive in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening commissioners, my name is john lewis. and i live on harvard street a few doors away from the site where applicants seek to relocate their business. i want to emphasize to the

commission how much neighbors wish the applicant's business remain where it is now or relocate to a neighborhood more intended for commercial purposes. by my count of neighbors who contacted the planning commission, 49 neighbors did not support it. only 5 neighbors supported. these 47 people are diverse, some are young with children, some middle-aged, some are elderly. some have lived in the neighborhood for decades and others have moved to the neighborhood more recently, because they sought a quiet neighborhood. i was particularly struck by the letter of noel loxson on behalf of his elderly montgomery mother, who lives

right next door to the subject property. he writes on her behalf, i she has lived there for more than 30 years and at her age she likes the quietness of the neighborhood. by having a child-care next door. and gordon lieu writes, "it's always been a nice peaceful neighborhood and putting in the daycare would really change the make-up of the area." adding 40 car trips perat per day and many neighbors are concerned once this conditional use is granted others would be granted and changing the character of the neighborhood even more. we really wanted to stay in san

francisco. but we had few choices, because of how expensive the city is. we didn't want the noise. the traffic, the parking problems, that come with so many san francisco neighborhoods. so we looked around and we were thrilled when we found the university mound neighborhood. and we're particularly happy when we found this very quiet block on harvard street with no commercial activity of any sort nearby. and very life traffic. the code mandate that the commission preserve our neighborhoods in san francisco. so that we have the diversity and can offer our citizens affordable, quiet residential streets too, so that they can stay in san francisco, the city that we all love. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is stewart gaffney and

i live a few houses from the site where the applicants seek to relocate their business. i want to address several points about the application. they want to relocate their business and please note that the proposal did not provide a necessary service to our neighborhood as it moves an existing facility with existing students and existing wait list from coming a different neighborhood and not serving our own. i understand that their current center has 17 and the relocation would add only 6-8 openings for those who may be on their existing wait list, but would come at the cost of disrupting a neighborhood whose residents like the elderly retiree next door to the property truly value its quiet residential character and at the cost of losing a use of a

vintage house. the relocation results in the addition of only .5 fte, the existing staff of the school would simply remain with one employee moving from part-time to full-time. no new jobs created for our neighborhood. with respect to the need for additional child-care in our neighborhood, we contacted the children's council of san francisco, a very respected third party referral organization, whose database included 70% of san francisco's child-care facilities and they informed us that their 95 facilities with at least one actual opening for children 2-5 years old within our zip codes and many openings include family child-care centers just like the applicant's preschool. i would urge the commission of

what they offer. many providing bilingual services as working capital. we appreciate the applicant's offer to give them their cell phone numbers for blocking sidewalks and driveways and double parking, but blocking sidewalks and driveways and double parking is unlawful. such an offer doesn't fully address neighborhood concerns regarding the issuance of a conditional use permit that is permanent for any future owner. for example, in addition, the findings say there are no exterior modifications to the building, but, in fact, the applicants propose to move the front door of an historic 1905 pre-earthquake home. it's worth noting that the proponents who speak in favor are from outside of this neighborhood and those speaking in opposition are from the

immediate neighborhood. for all of these reasons, i am respectfully asking the commission to deny this application. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> hi my name is tommy goygos and raised my family and had no problem finding child-care for my children. i have a complaint for sarah which was cleared and i have her deed of trust. when she purchased the property that states she was going to live in the property and not use it as a commercial facility, which leads me to the character in which we believe is trying to come into our neighborhood. her deed of trust states one, she is going to live in it and two, she is no and using it as a commercial space. i feel that she should -- and

maybe go back to that bank and tell her it's not longer going to be a single-family residence loan. sorry about that. i am completely opposed to this. and would like to keep our neighborhood as quiet as possible. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing morning to the public comment portion is closed. opening it up to commissioners for questions, commissioner antonini? >> thank you. this is a very interesting proposal and i certainly can identify with it. i have a granddaughter who is looking for preschool in september and a few more on the way from what i understand. [ laughter ]. so it's an issue that affects all of us. there was some commentary about the other facilities that are available. and part of our packet includes a list of the various

child-care facilities or preschools in the neighborhood or adjoining neighborhoods. but many of these are means of income tests. so people would not qualify if their income were higher than a certain level, or many of them closed at 2:30 and don't include a full days that one does. so i think there is no question that there is a need. and they would be principaled permitted at 15 or below and they are only going for five more children, which is why they are before us today. so i think there is a lot of potential for this. and i agree that i really like the university mound in the district. i know it very well having raised kids in the city and playing games over there, particularly at st. elizabeth,

which is unfortunatialy closed right now, but archdiocese continuing re-opening it. i appreciate all the testimony by the various neighbors and the opposition, but i don't see how the impact should be that great. you are talking about 20 children. they are going to be dropped off, presumably, about 8:00 a.m., maybe a little bit before or after and then picked up, most of them in the late afternoon about 4:30 or 5:00. and and i don't think having a school in an area necessarily degrades property values. my kids went to st. brendons and the school was built much later than the houses. and their property values continued to gain all the time,

even though they have nine grades with 40 kids per grade as well as a gymnasium and i haven't heard any complaints from the neighborhoods. this is a much larger impact than what we're talking about here. it would seem as though this use, i don't think should be that much of a problem as along as the white zone is there that people drop-off. and there is enough sound mitigation as possible. i kind of think this is a good project, but i certainly appreciate the neighbors' concerns and i hate to see a potentially house that could be used as a residence as another use, but it looks like a good use >> commissioner hillis. >> thank you. i echo those communities. i know it's hard to find space for preschools. we have had the same issue in our neighborhood and actually there is a preschool, two of them within a block from me

that have 150 kids combined. it's interresidential neighborhoods and the kids play outside and they get twice that in applications every year for spots. my kids go there and i'm lucky enough to be able to walk and i have gotten families from this district who drive their kids across town to go there. so there is a need for preschools in the city. and 20 kids is not a lot. it certainly could be managed. i encourage you to continue to talk to each other, because no matter what condition we put on this, white zone or not, it's ultimately how it works and how it's integrated into the neighborhood. every kid that goes to my preschool, 150 kids has to be walked in by their parents. and it works. so i would encourage you to keep working on this. it is part of a cohesive community when you have churchs

and preschools as part of residential neighborhoods. so i disagree that this is a business in a residential neighborhood. it's something to serve the neighborhood and i would urge the preschool to prioritize the neighborhood, so kids are not driving. that is something that we encouraged our preschools in our neighborhoods do. so i am supportive. >> commissioner borden? >> i'm going to agree with the previous commissioners and the way the project is designed it would be designed in a way that could be converted back into a home at a future time. as stated by commissioner antonini, it's as right use and they could put the preschool without this process at all. the fact that they are adding actually the net benefit. i am at that age demographic when all my friends are having kids and being told that they need to register their kids for preschool while they are in

utero. we're part of a pilot aligned with the core curriculum standards and i work for a technology company and we're not at that level. preschool with core curriculum that makes for successful individuals. underserved kids particularly to do well in math in school. so there is a big difference between daycare and preschool and that is what we have a lack of is preschool. there are day-care centers. no one is arguing about the lack of and i think our own research found there is a daycare, but daycare didn't do is anything, particularly for kids of color. head start has been shown to be very ineffective, not to disrespectful. they provide a place for

working families to place their children, but do not provide the generatation of a workforce of the future. i have to say that when we look at our priority principles and the general plan about serving families and neighbors who are serving youth and child-care, this is one of those issues that is equally as important. so i understand the concerns about noise. and it's actually interesting that we hear this a lot on people complaining about the loss of families and we hear these a lot. we have a lot of issues where people get upset about preschools and i find it surprising in a city that is supposed to be welcoming all kinds of people and families and lifestyles. and residential neighborhoods are the logical place where you have preschools.

you don't want them on busy streets where they could get hit by a muni bus. the kids will be gone at night when people particularly sleep. there is a specific level of ambient noise and these kids have two nap times within their schedules. so i think some of the fears might be slightly exaggerated. >> the speaker pointed out it runs with the land and it's not specific to this particular owner, but now narrowly constructed is this cu? is it specifically and solely for increasing the number of

preschool children that would be on this site? >> it would be for 20 children. and they wouldn't be able to do anymore than 20 children without come back for an additional use. there is a condition for a community liaison person. so even if it transferred person it could need a contact person. >> so this particular owner happened to exit the business, for example and someone wanted to come back in to run a preschool, they would be limited to 20 children? >> yes. >> they would have a community liaison? they would have all the conditions that still apply? >> yes. >> thank you. and it wouldn't be for any other use other than that? >> correct. >> could you call the question, please. >> yes commissioners, a motion and second to approve with conditions. (roll call ) . >> so moved commissioners.

that motion passes unanimously, 7-0. commissioners that will place you on item 16 case no. 2012-0082c, at 1856 pacific avenue i believe as part of your packets there was a request for continuance by opposition; not supported by project sponsor or staff. >> good evening commissioners. i am david lindsey from department staff. the project was initially on your calendar

earlier this fall as two discretionary review requests. shortly before that hearing was to take place, department staff required that the project requires conditional use authorization, due to its high above 50'. project sponsors were advised of this and filed the required conditional use application and dr applications were canceled and the associated fees were refunded. notification for the conditional use hearing was completed and here we are today. on behalf of staff i would like to apologize for the staff error and the ensuing confusion. the project before you is a is one-story vertical addition to a 11-unit apartment building located at 1856 pacific on and off mid-block on the north side of the street between franklin and gough streets. the property is located in the