. >> at the controls is victor pacheco, the board's legal assistant. we're going to be joined tonight by representatives from city departments who have matters before the board. walking in

right now is scott sanchez, the city's zoning administrator and also represents the planning commission and planning department and will be joined shortly by senior building inspector joseph duffy who will be representing the. >> the board requests you turn off all phones and pagers so they will not interrupt the proceedings. please carry on conversations in the hallway. the board's rules of proceedings are as follows: each side has 7 minutes to present their cases and 3 minutes for rebuttals. people affiliated with these comments must include their comments within the 7 or 3 minutes. member members of the public not affiliated with the parties have up to 3 minutes. to assist the board in accurate preparation of minutes are

asked but not required to submit a speaker card when you come up to the podium. speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. the board welcomes your comments and suggestions. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, board rules or hearing schedules, please speak to board staff during a break or after the meeting or call the board office tomorrow morning. the board office is located at 1650 mission street, room 304, between dubose and van ness avenues. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sfgovtv, cable channel 78 and dvd's of this meeting are available for purchase directly from sfgovtv thank you for your attention. we will now conduct our swearing in process. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's hearings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand, raise your right hand and say i do after you

have been sworn in or affirmed. please note any member of the public may speak without taking this oath pursuant to their rights under the sunshine ordinance. (oath administered). >> thank you, mr. pacheco. madam president, commissioners, we have two house keeping items this evening. the first has to do with item no. 4, which is appeal no. 15-023, an appeal of the reverend vaition of a parklet permit at 544 jones street. the parties have mutually requested this matter be moved to may 15th, 2015, but we need the board's vote in order to do that. >> so moved. >> is there any member of the public comment? are you interested in speaking on the issue of the continuance? >> (inaudible).

>> we're taking public comment on the question of whether or not to continue this matter. if you'd like to speak to that you can step forward and speak to the board on that item. please step forward. >>. >> good evening, woerd, my name is thomas seneca, i'm a resident of 540 jones, which is directly above the parklet and the complainant kinani at 544 jones. she is asking me if i don't want you to delay, i'm not sure i understood that, but i would like this taken care of today. i understand both parties requested a delay for this, but as a tenant in the building, we were not notified of this delay and we find it to be a ploy to advocate our testimony on our behalf. as a tenant of my building and living above the parklet, i

find it to be bait and switch. as a veteran who served 3 terms for our country, i have ptsd, the medication i take to sleep i am constantly woken up by noitz and hailing and middle eastern languages are one of the loudest conversations in the world. even at normal conversation it sounds like a screaming match and it causes me increased psychiatric medications. i would like to see these parties face the situation that this is not a beneficial factor for our block. we are a tenant building, we have elders that have lived in our building since the 1960's and as a representative of my building, my neighbor, rodney, would also like to testify, would like to see this come to some sort of

terminal this evening. thank you so much. >> would you care to speak? please step forward. >> my name is rodney castillo, i live at 540 jones street, apartment 41, right above the address in question. i would like to see them at least by 10:00 shut it down, take it inside. i'm tired of all the tobacco smoke, it's a houka bar, they have 7 people sitting around this bonfire called tobacco and i don't smoke and the noise continues until 4:00 in the morning. and it's loud conversations, cars drive around, they stop by, talk to the people that are sitting in the parklet. it's horrible. if they could shut it down at

10:00, at a reasonable hour, i have no problem. they need to take it inside at 10:00. that's what i'm saying. thank you. >> any other public comment? seeing none, are you coming to speak under public comment, sir? >> hi, my name is david wallase, i live at 556 jones street, which is one building over from nile cafe. and i literally had to move from one end of the building to the next just to get away from the noise. there's people out there screaming and hollering at 4:00 in the morning like it's 2:00 on a sunday afternoon and i've called them and gone down there repeetdedly to ask them to try to keep it down. i understand on friday and

saturday nights it will be a little louder, but it's plain abuse and inconsideration toward the neighborhood. >> thank you. >> any other public comment on the question of rescheduling this matter? seeing none, mr. pacheco, call the roll, please, unless there's commissioner questions. >> this was a mutual request? >> yes, it was. >> do you know the reason for the more than month delay? >> the request was based on the apellant being out of town. i don't know any more than that. >> there's a motion on the floor from the president to reschedule this item, appeal no. 15-023, item 4, to may 13th. on that motion, commissioner fung, aye. vice president honda, aye.

commissioner wilson, aye. and commissioner swig, aye. thank you, the vote is 5-0, this item is rescheduled to may 13th. thank you. >> the second house keeping item, commissioners, who has to do with item no. 8, that matter has been withdrawn and will not be heard tonight. item no. 1 is general public comment so if there's anyone here who would like to speak on the board that has to do with the board's subject matter jurisdiction but is not on tonight's calendar we would invite you to come up and speak now. is there anyone here who would like to speak under general public comment? seeing none, we will move on to item no. 2, which is commissioner

comments and questions. commissioners. >> i would like to, on behalf of the commission, also welcome our newest commission, rick swig. i have had the privilege of knowing rick for many years and am very familiar with both his professional successes and his service to the city and county of san francisco. rick operates rsva and associates, providing advisory services for the hospitality industry. i think it would be safe to say he grew up in the hospitality industry and has created much added value for many, many people in terms of the work that he does which takes on a number of different aspects. he also has been active with organizations such as the san francisco travel association, which he chaired, and he was formerly a member of the san francisco's redevelopment agency so he has familiarity with the redevelopment commission, excuse me, so he has familiarity with how this

sort of service works and i know we will appreciate his service in this field. mr. swig is a graduate of stanford university, he is a resident of the marina district where he lives with his lovely wife and he is the proud father of two grown sons and, again, we are very pleased to have him. if you are not aware, he was nominated by board of supervisors president london breed, i think it was her first nominee to a commission, it was her first swearing in last week when he was officially sworn in on april 2 r*pbd and he is filling out the remainder of a term which will expire next july. with that, we are very pleased to have you and look forward to working with you. >> thank you. >> mine is very simple. welcome, welcome. it's nice to have a body in the fifth seat. >> not just any body. >> any other commissioner comments? any public comment on item 2? seeing none, then we will move on to item 3, which is the board's

consideration of the minutes for march 25th, 2015. are there any corrections, additions, deletions to the minutes? if not, may i have a motion to approve the minutes as submitted. >> so moved. >> thank you, is there public comment on the minutes? seeing none, mr. pacheco if you could call the roll, please. >> we have a motion from vice president honda to adopt the march 25th, 2015 minutes. on that motion to adopt, commissioner fung, aye.ment lazarus, aye. commissioner wilson, aye. commissioner swig, abstain. >> commissioner swig, actually you do need to participate in this vote. under the board's rules and the city requirements, even though you weren't at the meeting, strange but true. >> okay, then yes.

>> welcome. >> the vote is 5-0, those minutes are adopted. >> okay, thank you. item 4 has been continued to may 13th, so we will move on to item fief, appeal no. 15-015, san franciscoans for reasonable growth versus the planning commission, protesting the issuance on january 8, 2015 to 140 partners lp of an adoption of findings for office allocation to authorize the conversion of 47,536 gross square feet of the existing 62,050 square foot building to office use. this is motion no. 19311. and i understand that commissioner swig has something to say. >> yes, i have a conflict of interest -- interest in a building within 500 feet so i have to recuse myself and leave, get kicked out of school

really early. >> your first case. >> i also wish to disclose i have a business relationship with rubin junius, representation of the entity appearing before the board will not have any affect on my decision here today. >> miss hester, we will start with you and you have 7 minutes. >> sue hester. i requested that since the hearing on this project was before the board of supervisors yesterday that there be a presentation of what happened at the board of supervisors in terms of changes to the project and i think that the zoning administrator should do it or perhaps the project sponsor, but you need to understand what changes were made in the conditions yesterday at the board of supervisors and is someone going to do that? >> well, i think we will proceed in our normal fashion and if you wish to proceed in

those changes in your testimony --. >> i have no idea what the changes are, they have never been given to me. >> we will listen to what you have to say and we'll listen to the others in the usual order. >> okay. this is the site, the site is the world's most unusual site. it's surrounded by the bay bridge, the bay bridge is here, this is the bay bridge exit ramp from the upper deck. the bay bridge entrance ramp going on to the lower deck is right here. this is sterling street and traffic comes from the west down two lanes, a lot of times three, and they come from the east on main street. and the issue is safe access to the site. they merge here at sterling street, there is no sidewalk underneath there. there was plans presented by the project sponsor a week ago

and i've been trying to find out what the plans are since. the plans that were given by the project's consultant, acom, created a sidewalk and signalization. before yesterday it was not signal light but perhaps it has changed and perhaps there has been other changes that have come from that. so this is the crosswalk, this is the building entrance. and the big issue is visibility for pedestrians to get to the site without accidents. there is addition to the crosswalk designed by acom, there is curb cuts with bumps for handicapped access. across sterling street i've circled them on this map, this is 2nd

and sterling on the west, 2nd and sterling on the east. this is extremely dangerous because of the merging traffic right there, merging traffic. this is you are only going against traffic coming from the east and this traffic speeding down brand street, there's no obstructions from brand and 2nd street all the way to main street where there's a traffic signal. so people are really speeding as they are going down there, like 45, 50 miles per hour. and so the large conversation at the board was safe access to this site. my client has been pushing for closing off 2nd street onramp, which has kind of been done, and installation of a safe crosswalk which now

apparently is supposed to be signalized. it wasn't signalized as of going into the meeting yesterday. and the developer has done a whole lot of plantings. these are acom, the developer's design, which was presented last week for the first time to the community. the date on them is march 5th so people have had them from the developer's side for a substantial period. we got them first on the 30th. and the question is as you get approaching there, you can't see people that are waiting to cross the crosswalk. i direct your attention to these two men that are walking, the entrance is supposedly here. and they are walking to the west. a sidewalk has been added all along, it goes to sterling

street. and, again, you don't have the plans because i didn't have the plans. and so these plans, they improve the sidewalk over to sterling street and technically they are going to remove these handicapped bumps so people are disswaeded from crossing at 2nd street, but here you see pedestrians going to the sterling street sides of the building, which leads to the second question, which is the planning department didn't really deal with how the entrances were laid out. and this is also in the acom plan. it's called surface design site access study. and here we have 2nd street sidewalk that's new sidewalk, it doesn't exist at present, and there is a

walkway here. and you see the plans, there's a doorway there. not on these plans, it doesn't show them. but it's clear when you see the guys going that they are heading this way, they are going around the planned area here. so one of the questions is throughout this process, the entire rendering show, these are going to be tech offices, they are going to be young men that are tall. and how are they walking to the right? if we're closing off the dangerous crosswalk across sterling street, i ask you, i am asking you here and i will hand it out, the other side -- and the city has had this since monday -- additional language to be imposed. group 1, who was the developer, and all its -- shall

provide written notice to each tenant advising the tenant of hazardous access to the 350 bryant street, including that there is no crosswalk over sterling on the north side of bryant and that there are freeway lanes on the south and west side of 350 bryant. during the term of each tenancy the project sponsor or successor shall maintained signed acknowledgement from each tenant that they were advised of the problems of access to the 340 bryant site. that is a minimum condition. it's knowledging that the 10 ands were told, a, the crosswalks are dangerous, b, they should not be freelancing their access and, c, that there is a record of notice for the tenants. this is going to be

tech offices, which means young men, quite frankly. and i wish that someone would explain exactly what was done yesterday because i have no record. thank you. >> we can hear from the permit holder's counsel. >> good afternoon, commissioners, john keplan with rubin and rhodes on behalf of the project sponsor. just to recap, the good news to start i think everything miss hester is bringing up we are taking care of and is going to actually, the improvements will be done as a result of this project so just to get that, and i'll go into a little built of detail. but just to give you a little bit of background, 340 bryant street proposes the conversion of the upper 3 floors of the

building as the appeal was unanimously denied yesterday at the board of supervisors. to make absolutely clear, there are no conditions on that denial. the board of supervisors's jurisdiction is to uphold or deny the appeal and the decision was to deny. so there's no additional conditions on the project as a result of that vote. that being said, no one here is arguing that this area does not need significant streetscape improvements and that's something that the project sponsor has been aware of for a long time. as far back as 2012 the project sponsor reached out to sfmta and said, look, let's get this conversation going, do we need a stoplight, do we need a crosswalk here, and the response was wait for the building to be reoccupied and we can start figuring out what is the appropriate measures. looking back on that now it's kind of an unfortunate response but it does show the project sponsor was engaged and has

also been in touch with caltrans about these improvements over the course of this project as well. project sponsor has already engaged acom, a highly respected transportation firm, to design streetscape changes to improve pedestrian safety in the area. the key thing here is it's a very complex site, not just in terms of the road ways but in terms of the various jurisdictions. ultimately streetscape improve.s are going to be need to be signed off by caltrans, a state agency, but locally, planning, sfmta and both the state and city overlap and modifications to one have to be modified by the other and reviewed by the other side so it's really a complex process, not a typical simple permit like your typical sidewalk widening. the project sponsor has been engaged in the neighborhood and has executed a private agreement with them to

do a number of streetscape improvements both design and the cost of construction, you know, cover the actual cost of these improvements. it includes a crosswalk, we're also going to be pursuing a three-color traffic light, red, yellow green at that crosswalk as well. with respect to sterling street there's going to be, we're proposing to remove the curb cuts, the handicapped access, and put bollards and signage up instructing pedestrians to not use that, that you need to cross over to bryant street and go over the crosswalk that's being installed. there's going to be signage coming from both directions and even during construction we're going to be putting up lighted signing so there's immediate notice to driver, on-coming drivers, that there is a crosswalk and there are folks crossing.

like i said, this is not an obligation that the planning code or the planning commission has put on the project. in fact, it's consistent with the eastern neighborhoods eir, which says building owners should make voluntary efforts to do these improvements. these are significant improvements and this is a modest project. it's a conversion of three upper floors of the building so this is quite abuff and beyond what most project sponsors do in these situations but again we have a unique situation and the project sponsor has been engaged with the neighborhood to come up with these streetscape improvements. i would also mention that because the project sponsor is taking on the obligation it also means it's not going to be sitting in the queue of streetscape improvements that the city would otherwise have to take on. essentially approving this project today and moving on means these real practical streetscape improvements are actually going to be pursued and fulfilled pursuant to that agreement with the neighborhood, as opposed to

sending this project back and subjecting it to further process and certainly no streetscape improvements if there's no project. so the actual practical result of this project is going to be improved streetscape conditions more quickly than otherwise would be there. one last thing i do want to mention about that agreement with the neighborhood is that we also have committed to notifying all building tenants of the appropriate access to the site, that using the new crosswalk is the appropriate way, not across sterling street, the freeway on ramp. i do want to make something really clear. we cannot condition the project with these streetscape improvements in terms of legally condition the project. the reason being is that these improvements require their own environmental review and conditioning the project with these improvements would now send this project back to planning and would essentially require environmental review to start

all over again. and so that is why we have agreed to do this voluntarily and essentially are ready to file permits within the next couple weeks, we still have some outreach to do to engage with the neighborhood, get consensus as to what exactly they want to see, but, again, denying the appeal today will have the actual real world effect of implementing streetscape improvements at the site sooner than what would otherwise be accomplished and we respectfully ask the board deny this appeal and i'm here for any questions. >> how does the private agreement work with the fact that both the state and the city have to sign off on what you do? >> basically what we have agreed to do is pursue these streetscape improvements pursuant to the consensus of the neighborhood, exactly what folks want, subject to any government approvals. we have already had supervisor kim's office help us with reaching

out to sfmta and dpw, have already had early conversations with them as well as caltrans so we already have that process in folks' minds and are working toward that. no matter what, there will be streetscape improvements, we are pursuing the top level, the traffic level, the crosswalk and the bollards. >> is this memorialized anywhere? you referred to agreement. is there a written agreement? >> there is a written agreement, yes, that's been signed with the neighborhood. >> what type of --. >> go ahead. >> what type of occupancy are you having and what's the change in occupancy for the building? the amount of pedestrians that we're going to be seeing after construction? >> the environmental review document estimated somewhere around 170. the apellants have brought up it's probably going to be maybe double that, in the two hundreds, maybe three hundreds. we're not absolutely sure on that, we rely on the

planning department's standard model on these type of things. the ground floor is staying pdr so we have several tenants that we are speaking to about these things and the upper three floors are going to be office. >> is that because there's so many departments involved your streetscape is not going to be completed prior to the building construction? >> that's exactly right. that's why as part of the agreement we are -- you guys might recognize outside of city hall right now the two flashing lights, those will be installed coming from either direction saying alert, crosswalk coming up. so that will be used during the period between occupation and completion of the streetscape improvements. >> and do you have any approximate time that it would take for that streetscape, for it to be completed? >> well, it's an interesting question. that's something we've been bating around quite a bit. i mean, there are some people that are enthusiastic that we might be able to get approval within 4 months