what i'm interested in is that it's neighborhood serving nonprofit. and i appreciate the supervisor helping to allow the neighborhood to find a self-determining mechanism to have and track and support those uses which are appropriate for that location. and i think that is the strength of doing something which is missing. it speaks to consolidating health or health related services which are very hard to come by, particularly when they are scarce and one location in one neighborhood. i am very much in support of the legislation as it stand, but i would like to encourage all of us to look at it more as policy and legislation rather than applying it to a particular project, which we don't know anything about. >> director ram. >> thank you. i just wanted to remind the commissioners and the public in particular there might be some confusion, this doesn't change any height limit. it doesn't change any setback requirements or anything. it's only the size of the use within the building. so, this does not allow any user on that street to build a

taller building or bigger building. it's simply the size of the use within that building. >> thank you. commissioner sugaya. >> yes. within that context, then, would nonprofits be allowed on the first floor in the first place if they are under 4,000 square feet? i don't know what the base zoning allows or doesn't -- >> in terms of nonprofit there is nothing in the planning code that would prohibit a nonprofit on the ground. there would have to be an active use that would meet the relevant requirements of the planning code. i believe the proposal they have now would have an active use on -- >> i don't care about the actual building, but in terms of the district itself, nonprofits are allowed, aretionv on the? ~ aren't? >> a nonprofit is just your status, you know, in the eyes of the irs. you could have a nonprofit

retail store technically. function as a retail use. just because it's nonprofit doesn't mean that it's office use. i believe they will have walk-in functions when they offer medical services as well. it's been described. so, they're a neighborhood-serving retail or active uses that are also -- could be nonprofit. >> then a follow-up question to that. if for some reason a use that gets a conditional use under this provision leave, so the conditional use for that use continues to go with the space. >> so, let's say they had 12,000 square feet. so, another nonprofit neighborhood, supposedly neighborhood serving could occupy the space without coming for another conditional use permit. ~ >> so, this is an interesting thing about the castro street neighborhood commercial

district and maybe one of the reasons that we do have a 1500 [speaker not understood] code. the castro district has [speaker not understood] this is something like in north beach. in north beach if you are above the use size threshold then you're changing use to have the use which may be allowed principally or conditionally, you have to go for a conditional use in the planning commission. castro is even more restrictive. so, without having more specifics on what may follow, i would say there is a very good possibility that if the use does change that it would probably need to come back to the planning commission, but we would need to see what the change proposal is. it's not -- it couldn't change to a retail, general re tail use and benefit from the use size increase that was afforded to this use and the castro street is very specific in that unlike other districts. >> i was just citing if another

neighborhood nonprofit came in, they could potentially just move in without coming back to the -- >> i think that would be possible if they're similar in form and function, that could be possible, but not going to rule that out at this point without doing more research. >> all right, thank you. >> staff, did you have any further -- >> commissioners, there is a motion and second to adopt a recommendation for approval. on that motion, commissioner antonini? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner hillis? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya? >> aye. >> commissioner wu? >> aye. >> and commission president fong? >> aye. >> so moved, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 7 to zero and places you on items 13 a and b for case numbers 2011.0099c and v - 1759 lincoln way. request for conditional use authorization and variance. >> good afternoon, commissioner

president fong and fellow commissioners. doug vu, department staff. the request is for [speaker not understood] to demolish building at the shell gas station located at 17 59 lincoln way and construct a new [speaker not understood] convenience store and 1327 square foot mechanical car wash. the proposed car wash encroaches up to 45 feet into the required rear yard and would require the approval of the variance. no work is proposed for the eight existing gasoline service bays and underground storage tanks, but it cannot be above will be relocated and provided signage. the proposed hours of operation will remain unchanged at 24 hours a day for the convenience store and a car wash will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily. the project is located at the southeast corner of 19th avenue and lincoln way within a mixed

residential moderate zoning density district. both lincoln way and 19th avenue are major arterials that serve as cross town thoroughfareses whose primary function is to link districts within the city and to distribute traffic from and to the freeway. ~ these are routes of city-wide significance and varying capacity demanding -- depending on the travel demand for these specific direction and adjacent land uses. the subject property is 19,246 square feet and it is developed with a 23 34 square foot building that currently contains four service bays and a convenience store. the property has 132-1/2 feet of frontage along lincoln way and 150 feet of frontage along 19th avenue. this particular shell gas station was constructed in 1970 and is a legal nonconforming use. land use is located within the immediate vicinity of the

project include predominantly three and four-story multi-family dwellings, a religious institution, a clothing store and an eating and drinking establishment along the south side of lincoln way. golden gate park is located to the north side of lincoln way and located one block south of the property of both the inner sunset and irving street commercial districts, which function as shopping areas and provide convenience, goods and services to inner and outer sunset residents. these ncds are also frequented by golden gate park on weekends and by city residents for eating, drinking and entertainment places. as of today, the department has received a petition with 112 signatures in support of the project and four letters in opposition to the project from the public, the mid sunset neighborhood association and the outer sunset merchant and professional organization. the opposition primarily cites

traffic related problems [speaker not understood]. the department has found the project to be on balance, necessary and desirable for the following reasons. the project will provide a mechanical car wash that will serve residents of the western portion of the city. currently the nearest car wash is located 2-1/2 miles away at the corner of divisadero and oak street in the western addition neighborhood. the board of supervisors has previously recognized that service station operator $and those who own property on which such stations are located are entitled to earn a fair rate of return on their investment, where a fair rate of return is not being earned service stations should be allowed to expand or intensify if it would benefit the public. if this conditional use is not approved, the potential conversion of the service station to nonservice station use will result in the curtailment including automobile refueling and services and is contrary to the

public health, safety, peace, and general welfare. the project complies with section 187.2. in particular it will provide a queuing area outside the washing facilities to accommodate at least one quarter of the anticipated hourly capacity of vehicles. the wrote jetctiontion will also comply with noise ordinance and in no event will noise from the mechanical car wash exceed 65 decibels as defined in article 29 from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. ~ or 60 decibels from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. when measured at any location on adjoining residential property. the project will be constructed so that automobile washing and drying will occur entirely within an enclosed building. the project will also meet water use and reclamation criteria established by the zoning administrator in consultation with staff from the public utilities commission. and the project will not cause a new significant impact on

traffic and adjacent streets as evaluated by a traffic study that has been completed for this report. based on these findings and those outlined in the case report, the department recommends approval of this project. that concludes my presentation and i am available for questions. >> thank you. project sponsor, please. >> like to take this opportunity to remind the project sponsor this is for the project sponsor's team, the project sponsor and architect to speak. >> i will be brief. my named is mohammed [speaker not understood]. i am the architect for the gas station. i am here today to introduce you to our project, the station's owner is also here, nick and his son, sonny. in addition, a transportation engineer is here. he conducted our traffic study and is available to answer any technical questions about traffic and i expect there to be some. before i take you through the project i'd like to thank

planner doug vu. he's been great to work with and his comments through this process has made our project even stronger than it is. we started working on this project in 2010 when the goyals asked us to look at this aging station. it was under performing in a financial sense [speaker not understood]. my charge was to relocate the building, add a car wash and modern convenience store and to design a building that would stand out adds an example of green design on this prominent corner. it's important that you consider the owners are not planning on selling alcohol here. what we've come up with, and if i can show a graphic -- is there anything i need to do besides wave my arms? i'll just hope it comes up. but at any rate, what we've come up with is an attractive building that takes advantage of the site, allows

circulation, tuck a car wash into the corner and creates a green buffer for the neighboring properties. it's a good deal more pleasant to look at than the existing station. we planted the roof with native grasses which you can see here, that will screen the corner and provide both a visual and inclusive buffer. what they look at right now is roofs. what they will look at in the future is native grasses. i'll briefly go over the site plan with you. you'll see that the station is located on the inside corner of the site with the car wash nestled behind it. we landscaped the southern portion of the site, a site that has no landscaping to speak of. it is sealed by concrete [speaker not understood] and taken additional measures -- we've taken additional measures like a screen wall and curtain to protect the environment while ambient noise is more than the car wash itself. we spent a fair amount of time

in conversation with the planning department, the merchant's association, neighborhood leaders and the district super advicers. i'd like to thank supervisor katy tang building bridges with the community. [speaker not understood]. finally, we've spoken with the station's customers and are proud at the overwhelming support for the proposed changes and upgrades. and i have here a series of signatures. during the course of the evolution of the project, we've added acoustical measures, we changed the vehicle circulation and done careful traffic pattern and acoustical analysis to show the station with the new car wash is quieter than the surrounding tractionv and the queuing would not spill over onto the street or cause congestion. ~ ultimately this project will provide an ancillary use -- will provide an ancillary use to the station on 19th avenue and lincoln boulevard that will provide customers with a

service they're eager to see. as you know there is not ape mechanical car wash in the south part of the city. [speaker not understood]. i'm available to answer any questions you may have. but in closing i wanted to draw your attention to a moment. gas stations that are closed and abandoned in san francisco. you can't really tell the difference between the colors, but there are over 60 stations here that have been closed either by discretionary action or have been simply abandoned. and i drive and i regrettably have to pump gas and would like to continue to do so wherever i need to. let me call up mr. sonny goyal and i'm available to answer any questions. [speaker not understood]. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is sonny goyal [speaker not understood]. i'll try to make this brief. our family has been in the gas business since about 1978, started by my father and his

brothers. today they're still actively involved in the business and our business is to own and operate gas stations. we do not lease them. we do not flip them. we do not buy them to just sell them. as you know, oil companies have sold all of their retail assets. so, back in 2010 we went and purchased this location from shell. the format of gas stations as you know, which ahmad just mentioned, has changed over the years. they're no longer possible with just gas and a mechanics bay. longer warranties for cars and modern technology has kind of destroyed the ability for traditional gas stations to kind of function. so, in order for our gas station to compete and keep our gas prices at a competitive level, we do look for ancillary businesses to kind of is up leapt and keep these stations running. we can't rely simply as

[speaker not understood] to keep the doors open. in talking to loyal customers who come by our state, they talk about the dilapidated state the facility is in and they would welcome a car wash site after we started talking to some of our customers who feel. the new facility would be state-of-the-art meet all the latest a-d-a standards as well as environmental health. it will have a green roof and car wash reclamation system to keep it as green as possible. i personally attended some of the community meetings and listened to concerns about the car wash and i wanted to stress the fact the car wash is an ancillary business. our primary business is to fuel the motoring public. the way we do that is -- or sorry, the price of our car wash is predicated on the gas purchases.

i wanted to kind of stress the fact that we do primary reason for being there is to sell gas. in our experience customers don't come just to our location for a car wash. they come from gas and we try to get them to get a car wash or [speaker not understood]. we really need this car wash to keep our site justifiably financially speaking. we don't want our location to be another one of those locations that gets sold for price or a developer to build a high-rise condo on t. we are gas station owners and operators and we believe in the location with would like to keep it as a gas station. [speaker not understood], i'm prepared to answer any questions. >> okay. thank you. opening up for public comment. >> there is an organized opposition to this. >> so, we'll call that

organized group first and open it up to individual public comment. and this organized group has 15 minutes. hello, my name is [speaker not understood], i'm the vice president of the mid sunset neighborhood association and i appreciate having a chance to speak today. i'd like to start off by saying as an organization, we have a large number of our members here today. we are not against new merchants. we are not against car washes. we are not against capitalism. what we are concerned about because we live and breathe and we have our children in this neighborhood, is our concerned about j., we're concerned about quality of life. and these are three issues,

when you heard all of us, we will address. in order for you to kind of have to listen to no repetition, each of us will discuss one particular issue. but i want to say before i start that we had looked forward to a partnership and we are concerned and would like modifications to this project. but there isn't much trust that we have with the organization that just presented. for instance, i just heard them say that they have two community meeting and nobody showed up. well, nobody showed up because we didn't know about it. in fact, you know that this was supposed to be brought up at this commission in may and doug vu requested that it be postponed because we found out about it five days before the commission meeting from a neighbor who knew one of the commissioners who said, do you know this is coming up?

so, we're very concerned about the fact that we haven't been notified and that's on purpose so that we don't have time to reflect and to prepare. and certainly appreciate that the initial meeting was postponed a month so we could prepare. so, now on to the topic. my topic is the foundation of this. the foundation of this proposal is based on a noise study and a traffic study which they were required to do and justifiably and they did do a noise study and they did do a traffic study which i'm sure you have and i have. my point is both of those studies are flawed. if that's the foundation, then the foundation for the proposal is cracked. let's start with the noise study because noise is something i know about. i am a professor at san francisco state. for the past 20 years i have taught students who have become pathologists and audiologists.

sound levels and noise, what happens to our ears is something i know about. the american speech and hearing thoughtv along with the american medical society, indicate the conversational level of speech which is what we should all be aiming for in terms of the hair cells within our inner ear, is 65 decibels. ~ the noise study indicated the conversational speech is 65 decibels. i really don't know where the got that from. and that the noise at 100 feet would not exceed 67.5 decibels. on the surface if you don't know about decibels, you say, what's 12 decibels, it's a logarithmic scale like the richter scale. conversational speech and [speaker not understood], is 12-1/2 times louder.

that's loud. and it's not just loud from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. when many people aren't in their homes because there are homes and apartments all around on two sides this proposed project, it would be loud 16 hours a day because it is 15 hours a day 7 days a week that the proposal for this car wash has been made. so, i am concerned about the effects of that on here. the second study was the traffic study study was done in september 2011 and november 2011. i'm not quite sure why one was done eight weeks after the other. but the november 2011 traffic study, now 19 old said the comparisons could only be 1150

[speaker not understood]. since school is out, i have been to that street and done my own traffic study. i have been there 10 times. i have measured and counted and measured and counted and measured and counted. what i would like to do i think you have a letter from the association in your portfolio so you can just listen because it's all indicated there. i'd like to tell you the difference between mission and lincoln way because i don't think they're comparable at all. mission street, there are 40 feet between the convenience store and the pump. lincoln way, 11 feet between the proposed convenience store and the pump, all of which might be used for a queue for cars waiting for the car wash. mission street, 50 feet between the pumps and the parking spaces that they have for people who wish to park. lincoln way, 30 feet north and south of the pump. but these are where the entrances are ferment they're on 19th avenue and lincoln way.

mission street, six parking places plus one for the disabled. lincoln way proposal, one, just one for the disabled. mission street is on a diagonal san jose and mission on either side and they are relatively quiet at this point in the city, other other points they're congestioned. lincoln way, a state highway, and lincoln way a main artery. there were no pedestrians walking near the gas station the 10 times i was there. lincoln way, multiple pedestrians because there are sick bus stops, three on 19th, three on lincoln way. there is the golden gate park. there is a church across the street. there are major corridors of business. and there is jefferson elementary school with 475 children going to school every

day from the middle of august to the end of may. mission street, one bus line on mission and one tram on san jose, but no stops made after the actual gas station. lincoln way three buses on 19th, three buses on lincoln way. mission street, convenience store relatively small and this proposal would be to triple the size of the current convenience store from 8 hub to 2400 square feet. mission street, the proposal here, multiple apartment buildings and homes. at least 8 apartments overlook the gas station. it takes 6 minutes 42 seconds according to the traffic study. this is most disturbing because i asked for this information in writing and orally from the prospect sponsors and they have not [speaker not understood]. they have changed the car wash since the time of the traffic

study from the original now there will be three possibilities of car washes, one three minutes, one four minutes. that's just the time clamping the car in for the wash. it does not include getting into the clamp, getting out. plus there are three methods of payment which means there are nine new variables. none of which can be used on the traffic street. [speaker not understood]. anything more than that would spill over into the sidewalk on 19th avenue. well, 10 times i was there, the average, averaging them all together, we found that the number of cars waiting for car wash on mission street, and this is all in the last four weeks since school let out because i didn't have any time before that, were 9.5 cars at any one time.

this traffic study but [speaker not understood]. lincoln and 19th is a very unique, very busy major artery. and what we're saying is the study is irrelevant. it's invalid, and, therefore, the project which is based on it is invalid. thank you. good afternoon, planning commission. my name is angela tipper. i'm a small business owner and president of the outer sunset merchant and professional association representing over 120 businesses between 19th and 27th avenues along irving street one block away from the proposed site. i know that you have to consider the facts versus feelings in this proposed intensification of use. and i hope you will consider the following as i ask you for an intensification reduction and deny additional permitting [speaker not understood]. the vast majority of businesses

in our corridor are family owned and operated. these people work 60 to 80 hours a week trying to get back. ~ get by. residents cannot afford to be here. there are convenience stores and delis [speaker not understood]. a sizeable 2369 square-foot competitor which literally dwarfs the small businesses in our neighborhood. struggling small businesses goal will be heavily impacted by the addition of the convenience store. long-standing mom and pop shop and other customers by name [speaker not understood]. the car wash optimistically maybe shifts their revenue up in the low double digit somewhere between 10 and if that's the car wash where are the millions of dollars being

spent on the high powered consultants [speaker not understood]? why is this money being invested, a relatively small amount of money? answer being, it isn't. it is therefore going to have to come from the convenience store. so, despite the assurances to the merchant association, the small businesses will not be heavily impacted. that's not the case if you do some very simple p-r somewhere between 06 and 100 gas stations depending on the source you use and they get paid to operate over 100 more stations furl. [speaker not understood] or oslo i in their forecasting or operation. they aren't going to invest in $2,000,000 without an expectation something behind a 10% bump in revenue. this is important because it means that revenue has to come from the convenience store

which means it will pull it away from the local small merchants. au energies is a very large company. they may be family owned, about 65000 known and operated is nowhere near small. levi straus's family, it's a multinational multi-billion dollar operation. they are neither forthcoming about their business side nor providing information study and project status they agreed to when they first met with us in 2007 this did you not a warm feeling. at least they did assure us property owners who do business into traffic lands, [speaker not understood], commuters will have to suffer the situation and bear the onus of pushing through the remedy pce