y association and the market benefit district. those letters of support i believe are included in the packet. and to conclude this project, because this site is on the east side of castro streed between 18th and 19th street and it is a prime location and it been closed since 2005. so it is really a distraction to both residents and visitors in the neighborhood. we believe the project will convert a vacant restaurant into an active restaurant and eliminate neighborhood blight which will contribute to the economic vitality and the compliment of current mix of goods and services in the castro and will

prevent the ability from other retail uses and nor increase the number of the restaurants in the castro entity. third, the project site is well served by public transit and therefore the project should have a negligible impact and available parking on the surrounding streets. no. 4, the project will create approximately 30 restaurant job openings for local residents. no. 5, and other entertainment use will not only enhance the hamburger mary's operation but performing emerging local artist because hamburger mary's does not have former place and the

amount offen at the entertainment takes place in the bar restaurant area. it's good for the surrounding neighborhood and area. that concludes my presentation. if you have any questions, i'm available. >president cindy wu: thank you, let's hear from project sponsor. >> good afternoon commissioners, john with, here on behalf of project sponsor. we are excited to be here before you today where the project will finally bring back a hamburger mary's restaurant to replace the old cafe in the castro. they have spent time and money improving the cafe space. the commission approved the legalization of space since it closed to renovations. we are now

requesting conditional use authorization because there are 12 hamburger mary's throughout the country and there are entertainment uses. it began in 1972 on folsom street with san francisco lgbt community. original location closed in 2001 and the project would bring back hamburger mary's and there would be a live component which will include drag performances and d j equipment. we have worked with the castro neighborhood association for operating conditions for the live entertainment. hours will be limited depending on the days of the week and guarantees have been made

with the no sound leak with the noise ordinance and we have had them come out and do testing. we have cleared it and he's going to need to come back and test again before we get the live performance permit as well. we are going to be absolutely sure that we don't have sound leakage. we have widespread support for the project. as to date we have 672 e-mails of support in support of all the groups, castro merchants and castro, in closing the project will allow for castro districts with the early lgbt culture and we respectfully request your support and we are here for questions. >president cindy wu: thank you. let's open for public comment. gary wise and gill church.

>> good afternoon commissioners, my name is gary white. i have a small business around the corner from the proposed site for 31 years. the current owner of the site has kept the site of the restaurant as well as next door and almost all the rental units vacant since 1999 but he says 10 years. a giant dead zone in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in the city and more vibrant and is the demand as the major sidewalk work has been completed. hamburger mary's was very popular. in 2007, a group of men decided to open the worldwide chain of restaurants using a suburban

knock off of the old hamburger mary's. as is now 12 are open around the world. in order to qualify for conditional use permit a business must prove that it's necessary or desirable. currently we have a -- bar and other businesses. it appears thereby support for many restaurants in the neighborhoods. my sense is the support comes from people that are tired of seeing the ghost area or the former combination of hamburger mary's. this will be one link in a growing chain of

restaurants. if mr. natalie gets cold feet with an idea or will other businesses be open for progress. >president cindy wu: thank you, next speaker. i have more speaker cards. allen nelson. >> hi, thank you for taking comments. my name is john church and i think i'm the old guy in the neighborhood. i got to the castro when i was 17 years old. last friday i just turned 65. i think i'm the old guy in the neighborhood. i have certain memories of the both hamburger mary's and the patio cafe. hamburger mary's was an activist restaurant long before aids struck. we were raising funds with the no on bridge initiatives.

the waiters would spontaneously or the wait staff would spontaneously say, all of the tips are going to the no on six kiddie jar and why don't you add some of your own. they have a long record of raising money for as an activist business hamburger mary's did likewise. hamburger mary's had something that none of the other restaurants had. it wasn't fast food, it wasn't having flat screen tv's blaring at you. it was a warm and welcoming place where you can take mom and dad to the restaurant and where they can see you made a really good decision about being the person you need to be. it's that you may even

thrive as a lgbt person. look at these people having lunch together. i think i'm here as a cheerleader for this and i'm tired of the big hole in the neighborhood in the middle of the block. i urge you to not consider hamburger mary's a formula restaurant because it's independently owned and management and i think that needs to be mentioned at least once. thank you. >president cindy wu: thank you. next speaker? >> good afternoon commissioners. my name is allen nelson. i live in the neighborhood. the discussion on this project with extensive outreach, in fact we did an unprecedented thing. we for the first time ever

put a vote to all the membership. normally it's 10 percent of the membership, if they show up to the meeting we base that attendance on the 10 percent. we ended up doing an online audited vote and i'm happy to say that we had 60 percent turnout about triple what our last election had and out of that election, 3-1 was in favor of this project. so that was 109 people in favor of it, 42 opposed to it and for that reason, we strongly support this project. one of the thing we did talk about was ensuring that the community had some safe guards above and beyond just the standard condition of use. so two members of our former planning committee chair and our current planning committee chair worked on -- on a set of committed use to

have to the overall commissioned use. they drafted them and we negotiated and to be perfectly honest he accepted all of them and wanted one little tweak that he really wants to open the place and we have the safe guard if it ends up being a bad business owner, we have the different elements that we can actually enforce on the conditions. that's everything i had to say. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i'm steve clark hall. the previous head of the commission. i'm the one who assembled the online. i think it was pretty impartial. i didn't get any

complaints from anybody. i have to say the outcome was very polar e -- polarized. you would think anyone would get anything in the restaurant because it was closed. there are two reasons why it was opposed. a lot of people were upset with the project sponsor. just open some restaurant. the other one was because it's formula use. there is a big opposition to formula use under any circumstances inside the castro ncd. i started engaging these people. what if there were 9 formula stores, that would have been okay. i said what if the formula threshold were 20, we can't raise that

number. that what i engaged the people is what is that business we are trying to keep out of our neighborhood and no one could tell me what that business is. so, there is, i'm off topic here and complaining that i think the threshold for formula use is too low and i know there is discussions to raise it, but i can't figure out what business are people telling me who come to our neighborhood that have 15 or 18 outlets nationwide. >president cindy wu: thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore? >> >>commissioner kathrin moore: i'm very much for the project and

there is no motion attached to my package. that might have been an oversight and if that is the case, i move to approve or move with the intent to approve because >president cindy wu: the agenda says approve with conditions. >>commissioner kathrin moore: so here is the motion. it's being handed to me. times have changed. i will support it. >> second. >president cindy wu: commissioner >commissioner michael j. antonini: >> we have bases for recommendation and the decision. i only have the hard copy, not the electronic

one. anyway we have it now so that's all that matters. a few comments on this, one of the items on the paperwork quoted ken garcia from the examiner who said well it's too big for a time capsule. if you want a snapshot of san francisco in the late 1970s it would be hamburger mary's. i think that speaks to the uniqueness of the place and there was a speaker who was afraid of that other outlets are different from what it was presumably, if you the wasn't like it was before, then i doubt it will get supported. that's the proof of the pooding that what goes out there will have to draw traffic and if it does that then it will do fine. i think all the other reasons for support have been brought up. the fact that food and

drink percentages around 17 percent and the whole nct and cd areas of upper market and castro while retail is 25 percent, there are some vacancies around there and a lot support as mention side ---ed so i am very supportive. i also have something to say, a successful and legendary institution like this after it closed in 2001, hasn't been in san francisco for 13 years. i wondering if there was anything in the policies we have to cause it to not be here before. out of curiosity, i would like to find out but i'm glad it's coming back and it sounds like this is going to be a good project. >president cindy wu: commissioner richards? >> >commissioner dennis richards: i would

like to thank chang for all the work. they worked together and i went with ms. chang. the table is really helpful especially when we have this kind of a cu and ncd to understand the level. just a few things. i have received communication from folks asking whether or not if mr. natalie decides to go to palm springs tomorrow and mcdonald's wants to come in, to kind of rest assured for the public, can another formula retail come in and can it be mcdonald's? >> the city attorney's office, there would be an in indemnification of use. it could be considered new

formula retail. but it would really depend on who was applying and what the differences were from the old formula, not who was applying but what components of the application might be different. >> this is a 12-unit chain and something bigger than 12. >> i don't have all of those provision of the new formula provision to memory but there is those that see that as use. >> okay. former comments, even though i feel very old, the vibrant businesses and we have had this vacancy since 2000. i'm excited to see something finally going in there. i have mixed emotions around a vacancy being there for 15 years. we have something that is finally lgbt themed, we have a lot of gay

establishments shrinking over the years, finally lately we have a few that are reopening. we have cab aret we opened recently. i guess one other quick question, the old patio space which i actually remember which i'm an old guy too was on the back of the second story on castro street is on the back area. also to mr. nelson, the operating agreement is pretty tight. thank you for agreeing to that. i would like to amend the motion to include the operating agreement as part of the conditions. could we do that? >president cindy wu: i they

-- i think we need the city attorney to look at the operating agreement. >> you can move on and come back. >president cindy wu: commissioner johnson. >commissioner christine johnson: first of all i'm not that old. the second thing adding to the question that commissioner richards had, let's get this clarified for the next meeting or if people don't know. i thought the new formula retail legislation which there are some pieces that may come back to us that if there was not just an intensification but if there was a change of general of general change of use that the cu would have

to come back to us. if hamburger mary's closed and mcdonald's wanted to come in there? >> >president cindy wu: we can ask the project attorney. >> under the circumstances true, in an if you retail formula comes in there are circumstances when you can avoid the planning commission but when you go to a new retail use that has more locations than the existing formula retail use then it's considered for indemnification and it needs to come back. that's the threshold. >> how about change of use, instead of hamburger mary's and it would want to

be the gap? that would be a change of use. have i stalled enough? thank you. >> president luke and the city attorney's office. normally including terms of a private agreement with conditions of approval because once they become part of the city's conditional of approval we need to make sure the city has the lawful authority to impose them and enforce them. i'm really just looking through these conditions very quickly right now. some of them would be appropriate conditions for the planning commission to apply, some of them would be difficult to enforce. i think as i understand from the project attorney, this is a separate

agreement between the neighborhood association and the project sponsor. if the commission, i can spend more time looking at these individually, the conditions that might be appropriate to include in the commission's motion, but it would take me a few minutes to go through this and figure out which conditions are appropriate for the planning commission to impose as the government entity. it's up to you. we can take a recess or come back. >> given the location of the project site abutting hartford street, i think we need to take the time what is acceptable if you may do that for us. i know mr. nelson has been involved with this being with other establishments. i want to get this

one right because this can create a bad situation for other people behind if it doesn't work. >president cindy wu: would we be able to take the next item and leave this item open? city clerk: yes, i think we can leave this open to allow the city attorney to review and take up the next matter and hopefully by then we can come back to item 12. >president cindy wu: okay. thank you. commissioner johnson? >commissioner christine johnson: assuming the city attorney finds items that are enforceable as a government entity, this is a general question for the project attorney, what are the remedies that the neighborhood association has? there aren't any? >> what i would tell you that most of the agreement is further reemphasizing what is in the san francisco's noise ordinance already. if there is leakage that you put extra

insulation or sound buffering is really inside of the noise ordinance. it's an agreement within the neighborhood. it's not an entitlement that runs with the land with mr. natalie, if we don't make it a conditional approval, it's not going to apply to the next just like the motion. >> excellent. good to know, no matter what the decision is here, if there is another project it's not exactly how i remember it, then something happens. that's an example of what is not enforceable. thank you.

city clerk: commissioners, we are moving on and taking 13 out of order and public comment period for item 12 is closed. we are taking item 13. 2014-0985 also in the castro dwrikt -- district, a conditional use authorization. >> the item before you is a conditional use authorization on 400 castro street from a vacant retail space previously occupied by a formula retail establishment selling clothing doing business as "old cycle" this will provide indoor classes. it's approximately 982 square feet

for 3042 square feet. it's employing 18 employees and 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. saturday and sundays. to date the project has received support for the project including castro merchants, and no letters of opposition. although the project is not considered formally retail, the establishment anticipated to become effective january 2015 expands to personal use services. once this legislation becomes effective this establishment would be considered formula retail. currently there are 158, the project does not contribute as mentioned but it will. so with the addition of hamburger mary's if it's

approved, along with the next item to be heard, the formula retail grows to 13, announcing to 8. in order for the project to proceed, the planning commission must grant to personal service establishment. the department recommends approval with conditions believes the project is necessary for the following reasons: the first store dedicated to health care in the castro district contributing to the viable district and the project meets all applicable requirements of the planning code and the project is compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. this concludes staff's presentation and happy to answer any questions. >president cindy wu: thank you, project sponsor?

>> good afternoon commissioners. i would like to use the overhead for illustrations. talking about cycling plan. cycles need to get to shape before you start on the street. these are people that are passionate about cycling and want to get into shape so they can cycle. it's a 45-minute intense work out. it's like aerobics on a bike. these folks are on union street. there is one in san francisco that got approved because it didn't meet a conditional use. you can see

the uses above it. it's not disturbing, it doesn't make noise. the one 1 on union street. it's a retail space because it does sell bicycle equipment and outfits and accessories. it has the exercise component and retail component and this is typically what the front desk looks like. it's not a membership activity. you can walk in if you want to do it today you walk in and you can do it. you make appointments online, about 40-50 participate, maximum capacity. 6 :00 a.m. you can get up and 10:00 p.m. at night you can do it. it's 1 hour window for it. specifically with respect to the site on castro street. this is an importan