and a agree with everything that's been said about the board of appeals but want to emphasis one thing you have to get 3 out of 4 votes but it's time xhoum for everybody in the department as well >> thank you and a bill i was not going to say anything but i'm actually here for japan town. i'm even sure it's appropriate for me to be saying anything. a couple of of issues that are okay to say that doesn't concern directly the proposals before you but some things that have been said with the board of appeals i agree with the past

comment first year i think at any time highly problematic so have a mechanism whereby you appeal you have to use the building permit to that address the environmental officer. in that case you can delay the process every longer because you can wait until the actual permit t is issued. so if that's the last approval then i have a mechanism to rely on in that respect by appealing the building permit itself but to use the permit as an excuse to royal the decision by the environmental officer is problematic. and with respect to the integrity of the planning staff and city departments and

everything. i'd like to remind everyone that the city lost the case on the bicycling plan and the judge ruled it had to be back for an vial report and the city lost the housing element eir so it's not also the case the city makes the correct distressing. tim collins said i don't know if you read the newspaper in his other life he's a geologist and on another argument this was too costly and too time consuming and would eat up the resources of the planning staff. that argument was made

previously and i think that this commission should not take into account if it's something 3 needs to be done the mayor's office will make it happen >> thank you any other member of the public wish to speak. seeing none, we'll close and bring it back to commission. i'll leadoff. at first blush i was hesitating on adding the process, however, thinking about it and the length of time to get to the board of appeals and the amen of time between a project starting and finishing the board of appeals - i mean, i think they would not be experts in the field to make sdergsz i think it might go

sideways. bringing it back to the eshthsz r o strengthens the case and would cause folks hesitation on going to the board of appeals if the e r o confirms their decision. i believe this would be a benefit to the process rather than a potential problem so those are envy thoughts and i'm in support of the amendments made by supervisor kim and chu >> i'm not in support of it. i comment hearing from the supporters of the legislation. i heard it's not about the current e r o it's from 10 to 15 years when someone might want to sneak a project through or it's

bans a few mistakes that others make. there was a lot of ifs and buts we're all human i don't deny that. i'm sorry, i have the same concerns about opening up another possible appeal process because there are, you know, there's a great history of people being vindictive and a neighborhood being on top of neighborhood and the fight are plated out in the public forum through the planning commission. in terms of the historical buildings we do protect those

amazing well. the certificate of appropriate process is wonderful and the slightly modification requires it to be looked at again. if the project changes the smallest thing it does have to be reviewed again. we're not in any danger of hurting our historic buildings by not having a process that, you know, opens up this door that the e r o has to a review. the other thing is i don't know what the consequences are if there's an appeal process and like i would the e r o is only human and obviously new information can come to light but it's been reviewed by the e

r o and the planning staff and you're asking them to go back and look at that information. i assume that someone who is political phone number for an appeal would know that. this is a big solution to a very, very small problem and creates a big process for a very small problem. so that's where i stand on it. >> first, i'd like to thank the members of the public for sharing their comments and the amendments. i know that i read all the e-mails we received. i support supervisor kim and a chus amendment.

i think that there needs to be a mechanism to review this project and we're not talking about too many projects and i don't believe that proposal will in any way postpone that interest people we received messages from and my observation at large is people in the community can tell us what's going on and if they feel something is wrong this should have the process. and, yes i believe there are vin you disk people but i believe that communities stick together and want to promote the good for the community. i strongly urge my fellow commissioners to consider that >> actually, i couldn't have

said it better. one thing we have to remember is we've gotten so far in this process and for 10 years we couldn't do that. and so have another set of eye' d is not a big issue. so far as the staff remthsdz i think it would either be not sporting the legislation everywhere providing for the public hearing because i don't see the reconsideration in a written format or in an administrative process really changing anything. so i would support the commissioners in supporting supervisor kim and supervisor chus legislation >> thank you commissioner. >> thank you. i also say a

comment about the historic properties are protected actually most historic properties are not landmarks their proptsd that have historic but have no designation at all. i think about 2 hundred and 50 landmarks and there are many, many properties that have no designation and the sequa process is one of the few methods of review you have those properties. and i think that it only takes a 2350i projects where you have a personal experience where something depose array where we here about the ortega branch library they received the sequa determination but the sequa

determination deemed there were no changeso the project. and this kind of appeal process would have helped it was an unfortunate process and the ortega library was that demolished and the other library was small and it was extensively altered. so i'm no support >> thank you. i've been inclined to adopt the staffs remedies here. what really has changed my mind is one of the argument made by staff is this is a substantial new process without any need. and i think they maybe correct

in that. but there's another aspect to it which is that if, in fact, these - there isn't a need for this particular process the only harm that can come of it will be at the hands of nasty people who wish to obstruct other perfectly proper and desirable projects. i don't think there will be many of them. the climate in san francisco seems to have changed over the recent years and the people are not somewhat less than inclined to support obstruction of projects.

when the obstruction is not based on something that is really to do with the project itself and is motivated by i will or a political war which is going on outside of the commission. i have as many others who appeared have had some experience with an appeal before the board of permanent appeals. that groupings group has its own procedures and ways to deal with things in some instances it's satisfactory and other instances not. i was impressed with the fact that if there's this appeal that supervisors kim and chu favor

this project will not be debated and that's an important part of my consideration but fundamentally it is i don't think that a great deal of harm will come from allowing this proposed appeal >> thank you commissioner. >> my primary of coming in this hearing is not whether there should be an appeal but the recommend are, you know, a hearing or not i thought what i read ahead of time defended the process for a written determination but i want to congratulate the public on doing a really good job on convincing me and to come up with an

agreement so the speak how this appeal should be handed. i can support a hearing because that's where we are at at this point. my understanding is assuming that's the way the vote would go the staff would have to come up with a new resolution; right? >> can we have votes? >> can we make a motion? >> a motion without modificatio modification. >> i just consulted with the city attorney and i think we'll just change the language but if i'm incorrect i can ask the city attorney. the motion supports it would

modifications so we could support it without modifications >> i make that motion. >> second. >> and call roll so we had a motion to approve without modifications. there's a motion and second on the floor to adopt a recommendation for approval without the modifications. on that (calling names) so move forward commissioners that motion passes 6 to one with pearlman voting against >> commissioners your final item under our regular calendar is leveling case thirty 39 fourteen. >> if i might interrupt to

thank the public for coming out and the legislative aids. thank you everybody >> the sustainable bill it an informational update. >> what's our time. >> wonderful got about 45 minutes and the presentation is 15. >> oh, yes commissioner. >> so i'd like to

. >> this is a group task force. and as with any process we can't convey everything in the 15 minute presentation but we'll be happy to clarify. so here's the process. the planning department combaejz with the japan folks. we started with the neighborhood area plan that looked at the change that could be used in the neighborhood. as you may recall the plan so

here we go four years later. what we did we kept the good better parts of the neighborhood plan. the community didn't like the proposed increases in the japan mall that would creativity an incentive to demolish the buildings. that being said there was a lot that was liked including it's core printed, goals and objectives. so let me show you. here is the vision of the g hfshgs s it's larger the same. and the japan project will serve

as a cultural project. the goals maintained a one hundred percent so here's - here are the golds of g hemorrhages s. to restore to the japan community. and it depends upon the future to the home and basis future environment. so it is different in the ways we sought to have those goals and strategies. we promote the japanese cultural resources. this resulted is its nuclear and a preys document that others

holistically the cultural. and it's one of only 3 japan towns in the country. it's for social and it's for arts and cultural events etc. it's important to the city because we've been good about preserving the history - and at times of intense of shipping democrat graphics they might go away. step one we identify the resources that we have in a categorical way like in terms of businesses and organizations and institutions, buildings and cultural events and activities

and look at the people a of jap. we looked at the conditions in the neighborhood in calculation with the community. we identified 39 issues and i want to walk you through those areas of concern. so the first one is difficult to sustain japan as a communicated hub only 25 percent of the town is japan immigrants. there are an ongoing concern about how to keep it up. there's a concern that abuse in young adults haven't been given a seat at the table. this one is in the seat of the neighborhood historic they've not collaborated to get the

results for their own resources. related to the land there's concern about the utilization of the parcels there's a lot of development opportunity in japan town. we could grow if those grow we could have an additional 27 units and to see those parcels develop. in terms of buildings there's concern about the architecture style and hard japan are reaching the end of their potential life and to make sure they fit sfwots character. and the buildings that were built before the era there's style differences. and without proper upkeep those

historic buildings will deteriorate. there's challenges to help the institutions there's concern in the neighborhood there's a saturation for groups. there's a lack of space for organization and to maintain a physical presence in the neighborhood unless they have the affordable spaces speaker straightforward you need a lot of tourists to come here. business and ownership generation they're taking over the businesses. and findings and attracting businesses, of course, you want your community to be attracting

the same culture payroll there's always concerns about trash rae grateful e graffiti. you want the neighborhood to thrive and thus could displays other businesses. the japan mall is the heart of the neighborhood their home to do sos of remunerate but their aging. they're never designed for retail and their inward facing to the community and their owned by an outside industry that are not concerned about the culture.

the parking garages need upgrad upgraded. regarding cultural fire department's similar discern concern about the spates there's a lot of festivals in japan it up and they have a hard time navigating the process. and in terms of the peaceplasia it's situated between the two malls and it's the ceremonial part of the neighborhood. there's a design in 2000 the plazas is in and out inviting and the plazas could use the connection to the boulevard.

it's pedestrians that have concerns about the sidewalks and as other things that speak to the culture. there's a signage that needs to be improved. that's kind of the look at the concerns that are categorically look at the community. we have a list of about 2 hundred and 79 resources it they thought were important in the community and working with them we rounded out the list and comp come up to a total of 3 hundred

and 9 resources in the neighborhood. i'll walk you through the maps. the g h includes the map and figures we have a database on the website that contains the address and any resources that has important information. this is the area of speaking about japan town and hires the structures that are important. here's the institutions and a here's where the businesses are the clustering and here's a long time the event a lot of them occurring in the malls themselves. i'll be back to this in a second. in addition to looking at at the individual resources we said okay. here's a way to look at the cultural resources. we developed a method.com to

access the resources. our assessment methodology was for the park service or we could apply the methodology to the list and we developed heritage inventory forms. and all this information has been available on our website for many months. and because a lot of this work is a technical and because a lot more people are interested in this topic we would like to come back and talk the methodology and the work we do we wanted to hear your input and the communities input. so that's a bridge version