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tv   [untitled]    January 11, 2013 8:30pm-9:00pm PST

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meeting and wanted participation from the neighborhood, told, you know, somebody, well, this is only a private meeting and it's only for people who are right at the site right around the corner, so, therefore, make sure that i and anybody else won't be there except those who are selected. i guess the ones who were selected were thought to be people who would be interested in negotiating. but it turned out they weren't. i didn't hear any negotiation. when the court hearing happened they were eliminated, too. i would like to suggest that since 2007 when the environmental thing happened, [speaker not understood] was involved, troy butler was a paid advocate, rowena was paying the attorney, [speaker not understood] haven't paid anything. they have as much right to participate as anybody else and no more. the results is you're getting very distorted information such as at the last hearing. and one thing that happened, because the notice was all screwed up about what was happening and what wasn't
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happening, and then also the scheduling, they said everybody who was here to try it who could have corrected that was gone, except hiroshi [speaker not understood]. there were people from the neighborhood, all of whom had to leave. so, you got a picture that is so far from the truth, you know. i mean, i would think you must resent some time just having people come in to pull the wool over your eyes. there is this happy involvement with the community, there is an agreement with fuff. i've never heard of these people. who are these three people who say they have an agreement? they said they didn't have a contract, but didn't it imply there was some kind of process going on and some kind of agreement? the community room that was mentioned to you, oh, happy thing, well, i did go to the pre-op meeting and everybody who was there agreed that what was proposed as a community room was useless to everybody and nobody wanted it including
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the [speaker not understood] people. all right. straightening up the site, you heard all that about, i haven't seen there except once on one side and a little dim light at the time. >> thank you. i'll come back. >> thank you very much. is there any additional public comment in addition to ms. almon? hi, good afternoon, members of the board. i was here about a year and a half ago regarding the project of 34 to 36 pleasant street for which you granted a conditional use permit and i think a couple of the board members weren't present at those hearings, substitution members because they're new to the commission. we had over 30 neighbors object to t. the conditional use was granted with some negotiated changes. but one thing thats was always a concern was the height and the five stories of construction. i was told at the time that this project would be subject to the building and planning
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department rules five story wood frame construction. so, what's happened? they are now in the frame up stages and they have five stories of construction, but they have yet to comply with the -- they have yet to present anything that changes their basement -- excuse me, their existing floor garage to a basement. you're not allowed in san francisco to have five stories of wood frame construction. we did want to appeal the commission decision. but as you know, it is very difficult to appeal a conditional use permit. i was told that i would be able to appeal the building permit if i was unhappy with it. then i did, but when i saw problems, that was denied because you cannot appeal a building permit granted under a conditional use permit. so, what that means is that the applicant has been allowed to continue to work without further neighborhood input. to that end i hired a private engineer, pat buscovich who i have paid extensively to i'd have to say baby-sit this project through the process. in the process we found a number of inconsistencies with the foundation, with this and that.
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they've been addressed all except for the five story issue and the issue of them now abutting right up against my house and my downhill neighbor and i have several neighbors supporting me in this. i'm not the only person frustrated, but i am the person we have sent to speak. right now they have a eight-foot fill retaining wall. you're only allowed to fill three feet without a variance. the planning department said it's the building department problem. the building department says it's a planning department problem. so we have ping-pong going on here where no one is taking responsibility. we have five floors of wood frame construction. they do not meet the criterion mathematically to turn it into a basement from a floor. it was always a floor. the first plan they were going to put a concrete pad between the garage and the top four floors, but then that got tossed out because to do that you have to do a virtual demolition and that's not allowed in san francisco. they came up with this plan to backfill. but the backfilling wasn't allowed. none of the current plans show that backfill. what we want is a stop work
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order put on the project. we want this built within a transparent manner. it's been kicked up to the highest level of building department as of today. i want to be in the loop as does my engineer. we would like an explanation for how they're getting away building five floors of wood frame construction. i guess that's it. do you have any questions for me? no? okay. >> thank you. thank you. >> is there any additional general public comment? okay. seeing none, general public comment is closed. >> commissioners, that will place you under your regular calendar, item 7 was continued. it places you under item 8 for case no. 2005.0694c, 2554 - 2558 mission street, request for conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon, commissioners. rich sucre department staff. the project before you is a
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conditional use authorization request for a planned urban planned unit development as well as a conditional use authorization request to allow development on a lot exceeding 10,000 square feet, to allow accessory off-street parking at a ratio above 5 parking spaces for each dwelling unit, to allow a building height exceeding 65 feet along street frontage on mission street, and to allow a former hadly retail use doing business as alamo direct house [speaker not understood]. modifications to the planning code requirements for rear yard, open space, dwelling unit exposure, street frontage and off-street freight loading. the project proposes to demolish existing story giant value store, subdivide the subject lot into two lots, construct an eight story mixed use building and rehabilitate the new mission theater which is landmark no. 245 as designated in article 10 of the san francisco planning code. the project were to construct an 8 story mixed use
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residential over ground floor commercial building with below grade parking garage. the project includes 114 new dwelling units, 89 off-street parking spaces, 46 bicycle parking spaces, and three ground floor commercial spaces for a total of 14,750 square feet. the dwelling unit mix includes 18 junior one bedroom units, 34 one bedroom units, 11 one bedroom plus units, and 51 two-bedroom units. the project provides on-site open space two interior court yards and one common accessible roof deck. housing requirements would be satisfied through the land dedication of 1296 shotwell street to the mayor's office of housing. the project is also seeking an in kind agreement by the portion of the eastern neighborhoods impact fees which will be brought forward to the commission at a later date. further rehabilitation of the new mission theater, a proposed project includes exterior and
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interior alterations and changed use from single screen to five screen doing business as alamo house cinema. [speaker not understood], subdivision of the main auditorium, it's a five theaters and electrical and plumbing upgrades. on december 19, 2012, the project received a certificate of appropriateness from the historic preservation commission for exterior and interior alteration to the new mission theater. in addition to the 12 letters of support included within your packet, the department has received 32 additional letters of support since december 21st, 2012 which have been provided to the commission. in total the department has received 34 letters of support in support for the project. the department has received only one phone call expressing concern over the use of the land dedication alternative as a means for meeting the inclusionary affordable housing projects. after analyzing all aspects of the project department staff recommends approval with conditions. the department has included a condition of approval to limit
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the amount of off-street residential parking to a maximum of 77 off-street parking spaces for the 114 dwelling units, or .67 off-street parking spaces for each dwelling unit. the project is located within the mission street neighborhood commercial transit zoning district and is also along a transit rich corridor. therefore the department found the amount of off-street residential parking to be [speaker not understood] policies and objectives of the general plan admission -- mission area plan. with the conditions of approval, the department finds the project to be desirable and necessary for the neighborhood. specifically the project would contribute 114 new dwelling units for the city's housing stock including land dedicated for new affordable housing and a walkable transit rich area suited for dense mixed use development. the project would add significant housing opportunities at a density suitable for an urban context that is well served by public transit. the project includes a mix of one bedroom and two-bedroom units which would serve a diversity of household sizes and people of varying housing
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needs. the project exhibits overall quality of design which is sensitive to the surrounding context of the neighborhood. the project has been designed to reduce the apparent bulk and scale along mission street. the with only 24 former retail uses on mission street and zt zoning district, the number of independently owned retail uses far exceeds the number of former retail uses. none of these former retail uses is the same as the goods and services. [speaker not understood]. and is compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. it would not be detrimental to persons or adjacent properties. the project would rehabilitate a [speaker not understood]. and finally, the project would be using the land dedication alternative to satisfy the inclusionary affordable housing requirements. this alternative provides unique opportunity to develop
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more affordable housing units than would be required through the on-site affordable housing option. this land dedication would mark the first time a project sponsor elected to utilize this affordable housing alternative. to provide additional information on the land dedication alternative, a representative from the mayor's office of housing is present and will be [speaker not understood] next. in addition the project sponsor has prepared a presentation. this concludes my presentation and i'm available for any questions. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. theresa younger from the mayor's office of housing. as rick said, provide a quick overview of the land dedication option. land dedication option as rick said we're excited this is the first land dedication project presented to you. as wewer aware it's limited in geography where it can be provided in the eastern neighborhoods specifically to the [speaker not understood] districts. the project can dedicate either a portion of the principal project of the principal
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project site or within a one-mile radius. it provides a mechanism for us acquiring land for the development of permanent affordable housing and it actually would provide more affordable housing because of the higher percentage of land that must be dedicated should they do it off-site as land dedication versus if they were doing it on-site. in the long run, we think it's a good option because it will give us an opportunity to build more affordable housing units in the long run. while we were reviewing this particular project, we were also updating our procedures manual which provided some clear guidance on the underwriting guidance we reviewed as part of our due diligence to see if this particular site was acceptable to us. the due diligence material we reviewed included things like preliminary title report to determine if the land could indeed be transferred to the city for our development, a site survey to determine the metes and bounds of the property, geotechnical report to identify any potential seismic or structural issues, a
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phase 1 environmental report to see if there is any potential toxic materials on the site. a land use layout what the allowable uses and planning approvals would be should we proceed with the proposed land dedication site. a density study to confirm the number of units that could be developed on the land dedication site given the site's underlying zoning and assumes comparable unit size he to the subject property. we also requested cost studies just to see what would be confirmed kind of construction costs that could be developed on the site would be reasonable with our -- with the prevalent practice of costs that we are accustomed to as well as a fair market appraisal to see what the value of the land would be. so, after our completion of the due diligence materials that the developer provided, we deemed the project acceptable to us for development and we are in support of this project. we have more detailed analysis of the site if you so need to see. >> thank you.
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good afternoon, chair fong, commissioners. we are very, very excited to be here before you this afternoon. my name is victor marquez and i am legal counsel for alamo direct house cinema, [speaker not understood], the project sponsors along with andrew junius co-counsel on the project is here with us. today we have the pleasure of having mr. tim reid, alamo house senior vice president with us today to answer any questions on the operation of the theater as well as toby morris, lead project architect for the theater component [speaker not understood]. but the primary presentation today will be led by myself as well as by sandra [speaker not understood] from a & d who is an associate architect on the project and for us [speaker not
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understood] lead project architect for the residential component. i want to thank and acknowledge the great and amazing staff that you have in the planning department, starting with and in particular with richard sucre who is our lead planner on this project. it's been great working with him. he's been extremely responsive to us and works very, very hard. we appreciate that. in summary, this mixed use project has been carefully crafted as collaboration between oster development corporation, alamo draft cinema, with local input from the community. with what sets this project apart from many that come before you is the depth of community outreach that has taken place over the last two years by the project sponsors. we have met literally with hundreds of community stakeholders in the mission district and the historic preservation community and the film industry and with an
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emphasis on ongoing dialogue with nonprofit community based organizations, many of whom are here with us today. and it's those organizations that's truly the backbone of the mission district neighborhood. the project enjoys broad support for mission residents, nonprofit organizations as well as cultural institutions, business merchants and local small business. we have submitted to you over 30 letters of support with the majority coming from anchor tenant cbos in the mission, and you will be hearing from many of them today. the aggregate community benefits is in excess of $1,850,000. this is unprecedented for any development project in the mission district, and it will set a new bar for future projects to be responsive to the local community. after 700 of that will be used foreign v-8inand saving the new mission district which is a treasury you hader community asset.
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* a unique component of the community benefits package, which has been put in place by the project sponsors, is a community fund bnc of $200,000 that would help support local cbo and community initiated programs. a commercial stabilization fund will also be seeded with 200,000 to help stabilize local small businesses with technical support so that they can remain in the mission district. both of these funds will be augmented through a transfer tax in the future, sales of the condominiums as well as with annual contributions from the theater operation. also a unique component is that the theater will be available for five annual fund-raisers to be held at the theater at cost and all proceeds to go to local cbos for a period of 20 years. lastly, we have the 23 m-o-us. i submitted a list to you with community organizations, but we will be providing funding for programs that are much needed
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in the community. today we are here to present the housing component of the project as a theater portion has already been unanimously approved by the third preservation commission and we are pleased to report that the community is excited about this project and will -- you'll be hearing about that today. the only thing that's before you is the formula retail conditional use, which we don't needed to, but we want to be proactive and staff suggested that we file that. some time this year we may fall under that category. the things that we're going to be discussing with you, that could take my entire presentation. so, i'm going to wrap up here. it's going to be the question of parking. we are asking that you please consider increasing staff's recommendation to our full request of .75. staff is requesting .67. on the land dedication we're thrilled to be supportive of the land dedication.
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we spent nine months through a community process. we listened to the community, and we are fully behind this approach. we will be available for questions. look forward to talking to you more about the parking issue. but let me close by saying that we respectfully request your approval of our proposal as recommended with staff with special conditions and only ask that you amend staff recommendations to allow for .75 parking. now i'd like to bring up ms. sandra dibanco. good afternoon. before we get started, can we please turn on the [speaker not understood] and coordinated with the computer here? my name is sandra vivanco. i'm an architect, educator and community advocate. i'm going to tell you a very little bit about me. since 1994 i have led a community-based architectural practice with a very strong
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focus on the san francisco latino community. [speaker not understood] enabled the community to sign processes neighborhoods, visitacion valley, bayview hunters point, more specifically the mission in projects such as plaza de lante which is successful and hosts organizations as you know, [speaker not understood]. on a personal level i'm also deeply invested in this community. both of my daughters attend buena vista community and i continue to organization [speaker not understood] with latina youth such as [speaker not understood]. my role in this project is primarily as a professor of architecture studies. i have routinely led academic exchange programs with mexico, brazil and peru. my scholarly work chronicles the advent of architecture in south america.
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i am qualified to [speaker not understood] for the project in the new mission district. [speaker not understood] modern architecture unique and very relevant to this particular project. first and foremost is the emphasis on weaving such as fabrics in urban textiles, urban fabrics [speaker not understood]. the second would be the [speaker not understood] both in landscapes and architectural texture, but also very much in the site at 25 15 mission. the third is texture and color.
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* 2558 which is appearing in furniture, apparel design and architecture. the family sis on craft and technological innovation of landmarks [speaker not understood] in latin america. and the idea of filter spaces that stem from a thematic resource. i think are highly appropriate in the mission. so, our goals to incorporate color, texture, and vibrancy to acknowledge our share latino culture have been expressed in the care we have taken to include references to [speaker not understood] textiles [speaker not understood]. we have selected vibrant colors to reflect the vibrant nature of the neighborhood.
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[speaker not understood] ties back to the finer grain of the mission fabric. the result is a lively background for the [speaker not understood]. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is [speaker not understood]. i represent [speaker not understood]. we are the architect for the project. what i'll do today is very quickly give you a broad overview of the project. go into a few particulars and jump into the design contract. project, as you know, as presented today includes the theater and the housing component of the project which are essentially interlocking flag logs that are bounded on two street sides, by mission street and bartlett street. for the theater, the primary entry is on mission street even though the frontage is relatively small. and [speaker not understood]
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for the housing component which has great presence on mission street has a smaller presence on bartlett street. however, bartlett street does form the primary residential entry and vehicular entry for the project. the building has setbacks at the upper levels on bartlett and mission streets. at bartlett street the building is ed down at 60 feet above street grade. at mission street the building is 85 feet high and is setback variously above 60 feet. i think we'll go into the particulars about criteria so i'm not going to dwell on that too much since we're short on time. we have parking in the basement which is in a stack of configuration. the existing building now, giant value store does have a basement. what we're doing is essentially we will excavate some for the foundation, but by and large a significant amount of the volume is extant and we hope to take advantage of that for the parking.
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the street level has a large retail space shy of 15,000 square feet, the base of mission. in addition to that there is a secondary residential entry on mission street. the lively presence on mission street, which we hope will improve the block. it's possible that the retail space at large gets subdivided into multiple spaces. here we are indicating possible up to three spaces. up top the building as you see, this is the [speaker not understood] plan. the plan you see the deck that faces bartlett street, we would say the primary place to assemble in this project. there is also the two other yards, what we call the north and south [speaker not understood] which rich mentioned in his presentation. jumping forward, i'd like to talk a little bit about what sandra started to hit on. the project strives to be part of the urban, the can you recall turrell and the
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contemporary context. specifically the design of the street facade, taken from weaving and craftsman ship to undulate through the open fabric. it incorporates the vibrant color we see in the mission and latin culture more generally. we feel that the contemporary design especially is complementary to the art deck owe theater, helping to bring animation and vitality to the area, this area of the mission. * given the scale of bartlett street which is narrow, bleak views of the building are one's primary way of experiencing [speaker not understood]. the design caterses to these views [speaker not understood]. these views that you see are along mission street. the first one was looking south. this one looks north, back towards where we are right now. as we come in close to the building you see that the color is expressed by the difference in the form. we take inspiration from the coastal elements we talked about earlier.
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we expect and hope for a vibrant street frontage which includes the theater. as we get closer to the building, we start to see kind of a more vertical [speaker not understood] emerge that echoes the marquee generally. you also see that we step back -- beg pardon. we step back away from the theater. while the building starts to setback above 55 feet, there are two instances where we poke up above it. we are attempting to create a rhythm along the street edge. in addition to that we are stepping back beyond i would say what the requirements are, above 55 feet to more directly meet the adjacent content. bartlett street has similar expressions of the scale of the street is different. the more residential scale and small residential scale. the presence here is wholly residential, no commercial. i'll jump forward.
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that's a building as we are presenting it today. i'd like to introduce tim reid who is a sponsor for [speaker not understood] and see what he has to say. thank you. >> commissioners, good afternoon. my name is tim reid. i'm the chief development officer for alamo draft house cinemas. corporately and most assuredly personally, i'm very proud to
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be involved in this project. the mission theater, the new mission theater is an icon i can building in san francisco. we were fortunate enough and lucky enough to become involved with it, work with folks and rich most assuredly. and tim frye to bring forward what we believe is a good rehabilitation of that theater. we look forward to moving ahead with your approval. i think it will be a lot of fun to get it done and get it open. thank you very much. >> thank you. is that 15? going to go ahead and call public comment, a number of speakers. david de la torre. lee smith, chris olson, jonathan goldberg, and how about eric arguelo. might be easier if everyone -- speakers want to line up on that side of the room by the tv monitors, that would be great. good afternoon, president fong, chairman fong and members of the commission. my name is david de la torre and i'm here with my friend, we work at the mexican museum. on behalf of the ceo and our staff and board, we are here to thank you