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tv   [untitled]    February 26, 2013 9:30am-10:00am PST

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for architectural firms, which means that the firms were previously established now have to rely on the non-conforming use controls. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is janet clyde and my name was called in error in the previous item or you would have had my speaker card. i am a former small business commissioner and i'm here to speak on a couple of things that i heard this afternoon. the first is that i would like to congratulate the work of the western soma task force and i hear that arts are principally permitted throughout the district. i would like to have you consider the llp as a low-impact usage. i was one of the first proponents of this new permit and it was not in existence during much of the creation of
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the western soma plan. so i think performing arts and this limited accessory use is important, because in order for very small businesses to succeed, we need to give them the tools to succeed. so please look at that. the other thing that i heard was this is an historic opportunity to exclude housing in a principally permitted entertainment district. i know this is a very difficult decision, but it's a very important one, because i have watched good clubs and bars closed over the last 30 years due to conflicts with housing. so you have this opportunity. i think it's an important one, if it can move forward. i would urge you to do this. the third thing that i heard today was transit impact fees. they are critical and i will definitely support whatever is moving forward for housing and office and any new uses in the soma.
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you know this is very valuable land. there is a lot of money for investment in these district and these investors, these business plans need to help pay the way for transit improvements in the future. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner. thank you for waiting. >> hello, good afternoon everyone. i am antonetta and i have lived on 6th street for the last 21 years. i have been on the redevelopment pac when it was in business over the last 14. and overall we need to pass this plan and move it along. we need to take and expand and continue building low-income housing, affordable housing on a long-term basis. basic rent in standard sro room with a bathroom and shower down the hall is $600 a month now. so we don't want people being squeezed out the city. this also seems like it will help resolve the conflicts
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between entertainment and residents. so we would definitely encourage passing this. thank you. >> thank you, antoinetta. >> well, i trust they will figure it out. my name is sue hester and i participated in the eastern neighborhood and western soma. and the number of hearings that were held. the process was bottom-up and
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planning department staff are irritated somewhat because it's not supposed to be this way. but the eastern neighborhood was very top-down and what we had on the western soma was very bottom-up. and it was struggling with the thorniest issues we have ever faced in the city. how to keep jobs in the city, that are not fancy jobs in the office market and how to keep low-income resident s and low-income families in the city? how do you resolve the conflicts between entertainment and housing? very few people know about this map. it's an historic map of how the city was developed from 1850
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when the gold-rush started. in district 3 district 6, district 10, you have massive fill and if you look at the area south of market, a large part of the area in the south of market was fill. and they are the very people that lived through what i did, loma prieta, there was a lot of land failures in western soma, because if you look at the map, there is a lot of landfill. it's historic bay. as well as the mission. >> thank you miss hester. >> my name is jenny kyly and i live in south of market. i work in south of market and we have had our building -- we have owned it for 30 years.
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i live near the 10th and mission area. so i'm close to the 11th street corridor, but just a little further away in one the alleys over there. i am support in the western soma proposal. i believe that me being here in south of market for as along as i have, we have seen a great deal of change. we have three boys that we raised here as well. we enjoy that we can walk outside of our house and be able to be close to all the entertainment, for that is not just for those with bars and nightclubs, but also the restaurants and lounges and other sources of things to do here in the city. i am in support of expanding the limited entertainment permits to other areas beside just the folsom street area, because i don't think it should be limited to just one section. that the neighborhoods also need to be able to enjoy. and it's not -- as somebody just said, it's not a big
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impact in that regards to being able to go to a restaurant or someplace and have something in the evenings. where it adds much more vibrancy to the streets, to the neighbors, to the businesses, to see that all of these businesss can thrive. there are so many empty buildings in south of market and it would be a benefit to be able to see the area grow. >> thank you >> thank you. >> my name is ac carter and i'm here on behalf of friends of mine who own and operator ak subs in the south of market area. basically the owners came to me, me being in entertainment field in los angeles and san francisco. i told them, you know, i think the whole folsom is going away in the '90s and people staying up late. i know there was opposition to
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that. piano bars, speak ezs and spoken word -- [speaker not understood] would greatly benefit. i do propose that we can at least extend these permits, so these businesss can operate and not as far as a club scene, but as entertainment for all. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors my name is jamie whitaker and i'm speaking also for my partner, who has a home in the western soma area at 7th and howard street. we support whole-heartedly this first of its kind community-created area plan for the western soma and would encourage the supervisors to pass it with minimal changes. i think it's very appropriate that today in the philippines
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is the people power anniversary. we hear the term "people power" quite a bit in politic these days. this is the very first san francisco people-powered community plan. and it is really the best of consensus. not everybody is going to get all that they want, but i think this is the consensus of what the community has agreed to. i think when you consider the population that is moving into south of market, a lot of them are san franciscans who can no longer climb upstairs, can no longer go uphills and find south of market offers a flat area to walk around. so it's a lot of seniors, actually, either existing san franciscans or new to the area and are retired and want an active lifestyle. the limited live performance, that should be applied to south of market the same it's applied everywhere else in the city of
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san francisco. there is far too much discrimination of south of market that we should be treated like everybody else. that is the bottom line, equality; right? in that vein, folsom is not a street east of the 11th to be issuing limited live performance, because as the entertainment representatives have said, residential and djs or other loud amplified music just can't get along very well. very smartly the area south of harrison is set up. the silver tsunami is coming and i think this plan will provide for it. for businesses to succeed, they have to have a great product and llp is not going to help, if they don't have a great product and we already have
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nightclub that are closing and already closed. thank you very much and thank you to the task force members. my partner and i did attend the first community meeting at betsy carmichael and really appreciated the chance to have some input at that stage. thank you. >> thank you, mr. whitaker. >> my name is themus mickus and i have sent supervisor chiu and you an email detailing my position. i want to apologize in advance to speaking to a very small point that perhaps through inadvertent, i think allowing a
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garage to operate in an alley way would create traffic and other hazards should not be permitted. so i ask you to please, go ahead and adopt your plan as you have planned and without changing it. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> >> supervisors i am with the company called archstone and we have a very large development project at corner of 8th and harrison on a 3-acre plus parcel. people have talk today about san francisco being weird and funky and there is nothing weird or funkier than a
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developer supporting a jim niko project. it's a compromise between members of community, people in the planning department, developers, on and on and no one really walked out of this process feeling as though he or she got what he or she wanted, but i think it would be silly to think that you could go back and perfect it. because you are not going to get there. you are going to get just minor tweaks to what has already been created. so have i gone to probably 120, maybe 150 of these meetings over the last six or serv years. and i know there are a lot of talented and committed folks on the part of the entertainment industry who have concerns about the plan. i hear where they are coming from. and i do think entertainment is obviously an important part of what happens in this city, but
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i don't think it should be a cause to make major amendments to what is before you tonight. thank you. >> thank you so much. are there any other members that would like to speak? thank you chair wiener. if you would like to close public comment. >> public comment is closed. [ gavel ] . supervisor kim. >> thank you. so mr. teague did present a set of amendments and i just wanted to go over them again, right now. first, we did a couple of rezoning of the red along the major corridor where's we felt there was actually a conflict there and those amendments are in and that is clean up. second, is the removal of the b, bulk requirements. third the educational
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component. [speaker not understood] fifth, is actually to rezone class and rawhide to wmun and this is something that we worked on with cmac and terrance allen. if by some chance they protest this rezoning, i have been informed by the city attorney we can rezone it back next monday without it sitting-- pushing it to sit in committee for a third week. and i just wanted to bring up a number of outstanding issues with the plans that i think will be the subject of the policy discussion today. one was the grand fathering issue. there were two that came up at planning commission meeting on december 6th one was one you heard a lot about in public
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comment and that was the decision to grandfather the purple building on 11th street. it was grandfathered in because it had spent many years planning to build residential and was not aware that -- or anticipated that the commission and our office would think about rezoning that block to wmuo, which was an amendment that the planning commission passed in december. just for the sake, for the conversation that has begun this month, with that property owner and with the entertainment venue businesses on 11th street we did just want to allow this item to sit for another week to allow the negotiations to continue. the building owner is considering a different type of use and just out of respect for that conversation i was going to wait off and on that grand fathering issue. we have a second grand
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fathering issue on the academy of arts, which is on townsend street. and this would grandfather in the cu application and not of the use itself. i was going to ask planning some questions about that, but i wanted to go through the outstanding issues first. the second outstanding issue is the reducing the flexibility for historic buildings. this was a recommendation made by planning. i am going honor planning's recommendation regarding this. while there are a number of buildings historic on their on, if you look at the number contributing, it's an incredible number within the west soma plan and i don't think that was the intention of the plan to allow such greater flexibility for such a great proportion of buildings. so i
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will support planning's recommendation. what chair wiener brought up is increased inclusionary housing fees. those are that are half an acre or more. again this is consistent with eastern neighborhoods. the plan had a fee structure for major projects that allows us to increase inclusioniry housing residents for 33% with other fees going down by that amount. for myself i know that buildings on-site is always far more in cost than the fees that are paid out and i actually believe there will be a net gain for the city, but allowing the fee structure -- voluntary fee structure to go forward west soma plan. i wanted to clarify it's not a mandate, no more than 12-13 projects are eligible and of those, i'm not sure how many would even develop over the next 10, 20 years.
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with that said, it would have to pencil out out for the developer. this fee structure is only triggered when a cu is sought. i wanted to ask a question about the aau site. i know that aau is a very controversial property owner in san francisco, causing grief to some of the city's family. so i'm curious as to whether if we go with planning commission's recommendation, not to grandfather this cu, would it complicate current negotiations with aau? could this be negotiated regardless of when this board says? >> you are correct that the
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aau grandfathering situation is a little complicated and i would back up to make it clear. under the current zoning, which is sli, educational services are permited with conditional use authorization. so the academy did file their conditional use authorization for that site specifically in may of 2012. however, that review of that cu is contingent on the environmental impact report for the large institutional master plan moving forward. the west soma plan proposed to rezone that site from the area of sli to sali and to make educational services not permitted within sali. if it moved forward that way, the project for aau would not be able to move forward. because it simply would not be permitted within that district.
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the question came at the planning commission as to whether a grandfathering provision should be untiled to allow it to move forward with conditional use process and come back to the planning commission under the cu and that vote failed at planning commission. so they did not take the action of adding the grand fathering provision. as before you now, it unchanged educational services will not be permitted within sali where this site is located. specifically to your questions about the larger negotiations, unfortunately, i don't know that we would be able to answer that adequately at this time. >> i think for me, and i am very sympathetic. i watched the planning commission hearing. i know it was a 4-3 vote. i'm very sympathetic about those who feel about the land grab and without going through the process, i think that is something that is just
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occurring in the city and i have to acknowledge that. i also acknowledge that aau is there and i'm not sure if they are going to leave and all of those sorts of things? i understand there is a city negotiation process. what i am curious about, if we don't grandfather them in, could they negotiate regardless of whether we grandfather in the cu? >> i'm not familiar with all the details of the negotiations, but it's my understanding that the underlying zoning district does in the permit the use, and it has not received its proper permits like the conditional use authorization, if that rezoning goes through, if that particular site and that particular conditional use authorization would essentially die and they would not have an opportunity to get that site approved through the conditional use authorization process. >> if that would happen, what
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would be the next step for aau at that site? would there be an enforcement mechanism to ask them to leave? >> yes. generally if there is a land use gone into a district that was not approved or received the proper permits the first action is to ask them to get the required permits and if they don't do that or can't because that use is not permitted there, the enforcement action would be for them to vacate. >> could you follow up? >> yes sure. >> i will follow up and turn it back to supervisor kim. on the aau issue and i say this as the author of the student housing legislation, that really restricted conversion of residential housing stock to student housing. this has been a concern for me. and one of the things that i
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have always said with regards to aau, is that they really need to go through this settlement negotiation process, and that as i understand it, that settlement agreement whatever is agreed to would form the basis of some sort of potentially a development agreement for various aau properties. which i think could change specific zoning. so i guess following up to the question that supervisor kim just asked, if we don't grandfather them in, so they then have this school non-residential school site, and their cu, the cu application would be invalidated, because it would no longer be permitted. if as part of the settlement negotiations with the planning department, there were an agreement that they could operate a school there, presumably, the zoning could then change at that point. and i asked that question only because, again, in my view it's
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important for aau to deal globally with the planning department on these issues. and i can't -- maybe this is a question for the city attorney. as part of that settlement negotiations, and whatever results from it, could this be rezoned, even post-adoption to the western soma plan to allow them do this as part of the negotiations? >> john givner, deputy city attorney. i am not familiar with the negotiation details. i would defer to the department. >> sure, and i'm also not privy to the details of that negotiation. however, it's my understanding that part of the agreement, there could be an accompanying rezoning. i don't know if the agreement itself wore de facto rezone the site, but the site would be rezoned subsequent to this rezoning as part of that development agreement.
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>> okay. >> so i just want to clarify that. if we don't grandfather in the cu, in the overall settlement a[tkpwrao-ept/] agreement with the site [speaker not understood] >> technically that agreement would have to come back before the board for approval as well. >> if we do grandfather them in, they don't have to come back to the board? >> right. if you grand father them in, they would be able to continue novforward with move forward with their conditional use authorization as with their other site as cross the city.
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modifying the restriction of lot mergers and then rezoning the parcels, allowing rawhide to do the restaurant on the second floor. yes, mr. teague? >> i'm sorry, i don't mean to interrupt. i just want to be clear that the ordinance that is in front -- the updated ordinance that was introduced today, that does not include the amendment for wmuo, that would have to be a separate amendment and same thing with the 7th street rezoning. that would have to be a separate. >> that would have to be separate. >> those two issues were not -- so the first three, yes. the removal with the conversion
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of the b bulk designation to x. the rezoning of those red sites. and the educational services breakdown. those three things are included in the ordinance that is in front of you, but beyond that would require introduction today. >> okay. so i am going introduce two amendments. one to modify the restriction on lot mergers. that would be my fourth amendment that i want to add and the fifth just to rezone the two parcels on 7th street, which is known as cycle glass and rawhide and i believe those last two are no one controversial and i would like to pass those together. >> can we take those amendments without objection? that will be the order. [ gavel ] supervisor kim. >> supervisor wiener, i believe you have one amendment to make. we had a discussion about it and then we can have a
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discussion about the grandfathering in and that will be the last discussion. >> colleagues i distributed an amendment, which is to -- it's page 106 of the ordinance lines 17 to 20. and that is relating to impact fees. and the projects on development greater than .5 acres, but less than 3 acres and currently says small be subject to tier b affordable housing requirements. and then it states that the residential portion of such projects shall also be subject to the tier 1 eastern neighborhood infrastructure impact fees regardless of the tier level of the subject property. and as we discussed earlier, this basically if not exactly, but more