based on a larger perspective and include union and chest nut, and some of the arguments i think are even more compelling now than they were then because the competition says the three or four pet stores that were pointed out as providing the kinds of products and retail sales and things that were needed would face competition from pet food express, now pet food express has come even closer with the retail store on california which makes me think that this store is even more undesirable. >> commissioner wu? >> so, picking up on a couple of things, this item remind me of the orchard supply ie team that we heard in soma a couple

of months ago that the address falls specifically in one zone but it's right next to an n c-2 zone next to union, so for me, the question is not specifically what zone do you fall in and how do you apply the code, how can you get a sense of if you're serving the neighborhood, is it walkable, can you access these services by walking, if there's a desire to go to pet food express, can you go there by driving or taking the bus. in applying the criteria we're supposed to look at for formula retail and looking at the general plan, i think there is a preference written in there for small business, in particular, the neighborhood commerce part of the general plan talks about fostering small business enterprise so i'm not supportive of the project. >> commissioner moore? >> would supervisor mar and

other supervisors initiating investigation on how we put more focus on what formula retail means, the department will convene creating specific guidelines in the castro area, i think this is a difficult time to look at this project other than to remember what some members were sitting on this commission still today discussed four years ago. it has come into focus that a needed pet food express was approved on thermo street and it is a car oriented enterprise and there are benefits to that, however, there was within a mile another car oriented formula retail would open along a highway makes me very weary about how we're look at this particular application. i think it is very clear that

there are many things which in the last four years have made pet food an even more threatening institution to the neighborhood given the fact that unfortunately, the description of the conduct of this property and the parking lot are not particularly a good testimony to the person who's holding the lease and while i do not know the specifics, if you are into community participation, charitable contribution, the first thing i think you would do is create an image in anticipation of something which would give you an argument in supporting that side and how you start to play an act of presence in the neighborhood which you ultimately want to conduct your business. that might be my sole and single only opinion, but i believe from some testimony, i believe we hear the interaction of taking care of each other,

having said that, and based on the decision we just made four years ago, i will not be able to support this application, but i do like to let those people know who are indeed having [inaudible] and looking for other places to wash their dogs and i will read to you what it says on the plaque, one second here. there is a dog wash station at kristi field, also the applicant said there is none, this installation was made possible through the generous initiative and donation of san francisco board [inaudible] and collaboration with the golden gate national recreation area and with the support from the kristi field dog group. they designed the thing, they donated the fun, they provided

the working drawings, they installed it with the help of the park service and that thing is there for dog that is are running on kristi field and anyone who wants to wash them there. >> commissioner borden? >> i find this case very frustrating on a number of levels. both on the part of the small businesses and pet food express, i'll first address the pet food express and the stewardship of the site and the issues around that site which is very frustrating and i think that wasn't well taken care of. i want to express somewhat frustration with the community groups because i don't see the marina merchants active on the formula retail stuff, you don't come out, nobody cared about g rof star or all of the other stores along chest nut street but all of a sudden there's some interest in pet stores and

it would have been better if it was more external look, other neighborhoods did a better job, i think that's really important because the dialog is a bigger picture dialog, i would love it to create a business not to have any competition about it, it is about a bigger picture issue, to have legitimacy, you must be active on the issue whole elastically, -- whole list i scantly, i know the site well, i used to live close to site, walked by it all the time, i used to go to the blockbuster when i was the blockbuster store, after the pfe was not approved, there was a halloween store, there was a parking lot that was operating for a while but it didn't have a permit so i guess it had to discontinue and then the site

has had its various problems, i'm frustrated because lombard street does need help and i believe it needs an anchor, it needs more destination kind of experience, the pedestrian traffic, no one strolls down lombard street, when's the last time somebody strolled down lombard street, you stroll down chest nut and union street, that's part of the problem quite frankly and that site's not going to be a site where some cute little business is going to go into, ideally, i've said this before, knock it down and build condos, it's next door to a gas station, so it's either going to be a formula retail, maybe it's a type of formula retail that nobody cares about or it's going to have to be something else because nothing else is going to work at that site, it needs to be knocked down, built something completely new or some kind of formula retail,

you know, it's next to that gas station, it's got a lot of problems and that block of lombard street has a lot of drug dealing and a lot of crime, i have witnessed drug deals going on, on that street, we twice approved a massage parole which has been cited for being a sex parlor and i'm frustrate hated no one in the community knows ant that because nobody goes on lombard street, and the one who processed edward the second or some people that are supporting lombard street now. i think what really needs to happen, people need to come together around what can make wlom bard street bet e marina merchants are great, but they focus on chest nut street, the

lombard association would not have needed to be made, i recognize you have a lot of owners, or absentee or motel owners who are not active but this is about stewardship of the community and we see other communities do a good job around coming together around businesses in their corridor, for some people, people have cast off lombard until it impacts them. i want to talk about that. i do think that i would love to see -- like i said the community come together around lombard street in general and really think about -- i know the invested neighborhoods is coming up and i know there's investments that need to come into lombard street, i think it's weird when pet food express should locate in the bayview or in another neighborhood, if pet food express has a negative impact if it's on lombard street, it

will stale have the same impact in other place, you have to say you don't want pet food express at all, it can't be both ways, we have to make a decision about what is actually the place there. unfortunately, as we know, sadly, i think that i live three blocks from the current pet food express, it's nicely maintained, i don't have any pets, i have no reason to go in there so i could see it could be a great benefit to the community, but given where we are today and what's been put before us, i can't support it. >> i'll follow up on that comment and i first want to say along with commissioner borden, it's disappointing to see one particular item be so decisive and people to take particular

sides, sometimes in situations like this, it forces people in the end, whatever the outcome is to come together and do some of the things that commissioner borden is talking about, study the area, not just in one particular block but in the particular neighborhood, i've given this a lot of thought since the e-mails started coming out and i think all of us here have given in our responses now some significant heavy thought to all of your comments, so every single comment and every e-mail has been taken. from my perspective, it is about balance, the formula retail question is about balance, and address situation by situation. lombard street had denies, it had ihop, blockbuster, radio shack, it's not foreign to the idea of formula retail, but in

this particular case, there's so much outcry from neighbors who not just live there but work there who are opposed to this, it comes to my attention and it's difficult to make this a no-brainer and approve this particular cu, at this time, i think it's important that the economy's doing well in san francisco but it's important for me to sort of defend san francisco small business at the moment, i'll sort of put this out to audience that's watching this as an opportunity, if you don't like formula retail, step up and open some businesses, fill these stops before somebody else does, be competitive, mr. levy is an excellent businessman, he competed to be where he is now and i applaud him for that, and all of us have the opportunity to do the same thing, i encourage people to step up and follow his business model, so much so that he's almost

unwelcomed in san francisco, i don't know if you spin that off into a compliment but there is a compliment there, case by case, address by address, with the outcry, it's difficult for me to support this project with its past history in 2009. commissioner antonini. >> a couple of questions but first to comment what is amazing to me is we have a turn-out here, we have a lot of people who spoke in favor of the local pet stores and how much they loved them and how they served their needs, and nobody's saying they don't and nobody's saying you have to shop at pet food express. the way i was always taught, if you don't like something, don't shop there and businesses are determined by the marketplace, they don't get the support, they won't be there, and it doesn't sound like any of the opponents will go running to pet food express, so it's people who don't shop now at the small stores, at least that's what i'm hearing, i have a question for the project

sponsor or someone representing him, first it has to do with the lease. i understand there's a lease in place that lasts until 1919, i believe it's a 10 year lease and nobody's ever mentioned much about the landlords, i heard it's some family that doesn't live in the city, is there some flexibility to get out of this lease or was it takes out with a ten year term and that's what you got. >> again, for the record, my name is jim moore, i'm the project sponsor, we did have a ten year lease, before we got through the first conditional use process, our out clause had expired so we're stuck with buying our way out of the lease, we don't have any intention of subletting, finding a tenant with the landlord might help us get out of the lease but it's an expensive process, we think we

deserve to be on lombard and we think they could use us as an anchor tenant so we took an attempt to get the approval to be there. >> that explains a little bit of it. from what i understand you're saying, with an enterprise like yours, there's so much leasehold improvements, you probably didn't want anything less than a ten year lease because it wouldn't make sense to put that kind of money into it and then have to leave within five years. >> well, we have options beyond the ten years so i have the 20 or the 30 all together, the first ten, we're obligated for the first ten. >> and the question of maintenance. i heard there was a parking lot there and the parking lot park was responsible for keeping the building clean, the exterior of the building and the parking lot itself and unfortunately, sometime in the the last year or two, the owner of the

parking lot had to leave the business and wasn't able to keep it up and i'm not sure, is that a sublet or was that from the landlord and the parking business? >> well, all along, our intention there was to keep the parking lot active and serving the neighborhoods, so for a while, there was a parking lot company that operates parking lots that was operating it. when they changed -- i think they incorporated or something like that, they lost their conditional use permit to do it, they applied for a new one and this is wrapped up in this process unfortunately, so rather than scathing off the entire property we have continued to lease it to -- not lease it but let marina -- a few other retailers on chest nut use the parking lot, and as far as graffiti goes, we were

only notified twice from dpw that there was graffiti, if first time was two and a half years ago and that was abated almost immediately, the first time, it was 23 and a half, the second type was two and a half, there hasn't been since, we have a relationship with two homeless people who do live there and martin and ray, martin has a cell phone and whenever somebody tag it is build, they call our maintenance guy rob who goes and mains over the graffiti, he hasn't been painting with thick enough paint, and people think it's been tagged. >> so, is your lease, you're responsible for the maintenance of the building and the parking lot or the land lard is? >> it's our responsibility. >> it's your responsibility. >> yes, it is. >> we installed two cameras,

officer poliano and ramirez. >> it's doubtful the land lard is going to let you out of the lease for the next two years? >> it will be an interesting negotiation. >> okay, thank you. >> commissioner sugaya. >> i just wanted to point out something else, that this is pertaining to lombard street, and i think it goes along with commissioner borden's comments, the last time this was before us, one of the findings i think was not i think, it's written here, pointed out that one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons was that the commission saw lombard street as transitioning from an auto oriented, although it can't be completely that obvious since it's a major highway, but something that would become eventually more

pedestrian friendly and more friendly to small businesses and going in that direction. i won't read the whole thing here, but i think it's also something that based on commissioner borden's comments, that the community ought to rally around, especially the lombard merchant's association supported by the other two groups on either side, north, south, on chest nut and union and really try to persuade mr. ram here and the staff to provide some support toward that goal and to talk to the officer of economic and workforce development, the mayor's office who is undertaking a neighborhood initiative which provides assistance for economic development in commercial --

neighborhood commercial areas. so, just that comment. i guess as long as i have the mic., i'll make a motion to deny the conditional use permit and as an aide to staff, if they could go back and review the findings from the previous decision and incorporate the fact that the project sponsor has a store as been pointed out in fairly close proximity which is a changed condition in my mind, i don't know if other commissioners have any other specifics that they'd like to include for the staff to consider. >> commissioner sugaya, at this time, because there's only a motion of approval. >> that's intent. >> yes, thank you. >> i would also like the president if upon return of this item for action, and i

assume it's going to be in september, that the public comment be limited to the findings themselves. >> i agree, thank you. >> commissioner moore? >> well, is there a second to that? >> second. >> commissioner moore? >> you were encouraging for people to come forward and reinventing lombard street. i would like to remind ourselves just last week, there was a reasonably large housing project which will occupy three parcels and we sent that back to spend more thoughtful time on improving the design of that project. i think there is a will and there are opportunities, i would just like to remind ourselves that this corridor is not void of action. >> may i add, this commission recently approved the policy for upper market street which

had some limitations based on linear footage, formula retail not too close to another formula retail, i think that's a neighborhood that's to explore, the apartment is looking at citywide policies to participate in that as well, but put a little more definition of what's acceptable and not acceptable by the community. commissioner borden? >> and i would like to challenge the neighborhood to be involved in the lombard street, if you really care about lombard street, do something abit. we won't have this issue. >> commissioner antonini? >> my remarks are the same, i would like to see as much enthusiasm, there's a lot of bad things happening particularly at that end of lombard but even down by my office on the other side and i would like to see community activism to get rid of some of those business thaz are conducting illegal activities under the guise of legal activities and other thing that is are causing this, there's a

lot of stuff to do. >> commissioners, if there's nothing else, i can call the question, and on that motion of intent to disapprove, we should also continue this to a date certain, commissioners, september 12th, you'll be returning from your break and theoretically, we can put this on your consent calendar. er >> september 12th. >> okay, so on that motion of intent to disapprove and continue the matter to september 12th, commissioner antonini >> no. >> moore? >> aye. >> sugaya? >> yeah. fong? >> aye. >> that motion passes 6-1 with commissioner antonini decanting and places you on your final item of public comment. i have no speaker cards. >> is there any public comment this evening?

>> commissioners, my name is patricia voy and last week, i told you i was the coordinator forthe lombard master plan committee, cal hall association is involved, the mca is involved, golden gate valley is involved, marina merchants have been invited, this new group if it stays together will be part participant of it. we started it and supervisor ferrel asked us to slow down because of a study from the planning department. we will be reopening it, we discussed this a couple of weeks ago faster than supervisor ferrel want, the questionnaires will be out to the merchant and is the businesses concerning parking, traffic and their issues, and it is happening, it's just that we had our hands tied. i'm sorry we had our hands tied because we could have been a lot further along. i have talked to commissioner

moore about this on several occasions and have invited her out, and gwyneth, i would love for you to participate. we have been doing it, our hands have been tied and it has frustrated me beyond comprehension, i'm coordinating it and we will get it done and we are working with the mayor's office of economic development. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment tonight? >> yes. i just hope by september 12th or in the future, most of you have a little more compassion for animals and also listen very carefully to entrepreneurs like myself and people who know of shops that are near big box stores that do very well. i've been a businesswoman and i've managed stores and i've owned my own business and i

know if you serve your community appropriately, your customers come back. again, i really like you to really listen to what people are saying and have some compassion for all living beings. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment this evening? seeing none, the meeting is adjourned. (meeting is adjourned).