with parking spaces this proposed has a downtown recommendation and we'll be seeking modifications. the planning tower spacing and dwelling unit exposure and off street this has modifications through 3 eight hundred 9 free time and the rincon hill includes the lesser tower separation and the budget on the site it is lens the planning code which provide for variation on the upper scoping e skup tower requirement this received it's entitlements in march of 2006 to date the department has one corresponds regarding that

that was e-mailed to the commission the commission initiative and displaced the draft resolution to the commission may consider the legislation and approval of an ordinance on july 6 2015, and currently the project approvals will be 1086 schedule for july 16th the spokeswoman it present and has a short presentation >> project sponsor. >> good afternoon, commissioners i'm cameron the senior managing director with hines along with our investment partner we pleased to be here and i'll be happy to answer any questions for us recognizing there be be a more complete presentation when we rupture in july we've been working in collaboration with city planning over two years and pleased with the process and the

high quality design of a building that has resulted and projects lead by the architect i am sorry to our colleague who will talk about the process and steve with the firm if you have questions about the proposed amendment and the text amendment. >> good afternoon commissioners i'm ben an architect with solomon with the arithmetic at the project for harrison on the screen you'll see the sight along harrison street and second frontage along the freeway that runs south you'll see some project site

photographs we should harrison street slopes sharpening from the freeway ramp and two story building housing a night club and basement level and north details project we're proposing is hundred and 79 units 20 percent studios and 45 percent one berms and 44 percent 2 bedrooms reaching the requirement of the neighborhood those unite size are 7 hundred and 90 square feet and the units are 12 percent 22 unit, 97 parking spaces and 20 class two bike parking spaces and 7 hundred and 90 square feet of retail on the ground floor. >> the project is 17 stories tall and hundred and 75 feet and

height and 6 stories in the pronounced and stories in the tower this illustrates in the dark blue the massing and the dashed white line is the current bulk and height limits for the site site is under the current bulk and height limit allows a 4 hundred feet tower we're proposing hundred and 75 feet reduction is 35 percent in the height of the project 55 percent below the current zone this slide shows on image of the site this next slide shows what's being proposed hundred 75 feet

this slide shows in context the rincon hill neighborhood as you can see a 4 hundred foot tower under the bulk and height constraint here is what is property hundred and 75 foot tower this is the first image of the project within the site the site was bound on on the west side by selma and on the south west and a by the beach and rincon hill the project is showing a linkage between the neighborhood and in classic it is more in keeping with the language of the inks south of market and has less i think incumbent with the rincon hill and pines enough said that's the design of the project it is more solid design and

masonry and escalation e elevation treatment and the missouri actives the bay windows multi story in the neighborhood this is the basement level the street level is below grade parking up harrison and bike parking on the ground floor and parking is a mixture of surface parking on the grvp on harrison street where the building lobby and retail space the amenity of the residential building this shows the site as it currently stands with the detail in the basement and the proposed scheme which brings those activities to the face of our building along harrison street pulls a piece of building back to create a

sheltered area where the retail and the lobby can be in face with the street this is the podium of the building 6 stories of podium with stories this is the actual podium level with residential amenity space on the south side this is the critical floor of the tower rooftop is the amenity space recognizing the communities are not - along the frontage we've taken the main program and put it on top of the building making a good portion of the open space requirement this is an image of the building as you can see the scale of rincon hill advancing to the left on the image and the freeway ramp on the right and i'll leave i with the

overview of the project with the skyline skyline. >> okay millennial from project sponsor? okay opening it up for public comment no. public comment is closed. commissioner moore >> it is a difficult project to comment on but i want to start with a couple questions could you go back to please to our slides and show the building as it is permitted is that the show us that is that the building a code compliant building as preth it in your cd and yes, this

shows if i go back a couple slides to this which recognizes the maximum dimensions on behalf of the 55 feet and the curved line on the north side of the image described by the red dashed line shows the tower separation that would be the footprint for the tower. >> right show me and answer the question as shown as a result code compliant building. >> yes. >> the answer is yes okay move forward and talk about the hundred and 65 foot building what it will look like with the new building behind that this is of interest to me. >> this is the building based on what you are asking us today. >> that's correct.

>> but i cannot hear. >> is that the building behind it. >> the 45 that's the building immediately behind the building. >> it must be under construction; right? >> it's almost complete. >> why did you decide to build a not build the hundred hundred out so when we were initially going through the design process in collaboration with the city the idea of having 3, 4 hundred foot towers really 4 if you count rincon hill tower one and two but the closest neighborhood and lansing across the street the design as it related to the

context within the neighborhood the third, 4 hundred foot tower is a little bit busy and so we thought that at that corner of rincon hill the thinking was that by going from 4 hundred feet as a health to 2 hundred feet as a limit it is a good trade, if you will for what we're asking for in terms of two exemptions a modest tower separation and allowance for a little bit more bulk within the tower portion which is now down to 10 stories up to 17 stories the idea was that it was really a better conceptual urban project we thought it was in context of that project a good

thing we think appropriate size and viable so large enough to make that work economically and like the result does that answer our question. >> i will follow-up with another question do you have all the data what's the delta between the one you're asking the modifications today. >> the 4 hundred feet tower a 2 hundred 80 units and hundred and 79 as planned those are the differences and bulk 35 percent less and in terms of height it is really the height limit is half but the building is 55 percent less. >> right? but you have a 20 foot penthouse on top of top we're adding 20 feet along the i 80s is still there but not the reason why i'm asking the

question have you tried a code compliant building in which your coming up with. >> we looked at doing the code compliant at 4 hundred feet it will not met with good strong support from the city and the other considerations the neighborhoods the rincon hill condominium association and now residents in the second tower completed and the 35 lansing under construction they don't have tenant yet but working through the neighborhood outreach with the condominium owners and other residents in the neighborhood the response we got from the early outreach they liked the smaller height and design they were adamant they wanted the sound factory to go away and the auto dealer but they made comments we got were

the desire to have a little bit of retail space on the ground floor the cafeteria and the coffee shop if it please the court, if you will, that's the plan having the streetscape like rincon hill be redone at the sidewalk level and getting into a more pedestrian safety along the sidewalks a blank wall for the sound factory. >> if you want to answer that. >> is there anything you want to add, sir and if i could have the official again if you look at this slide code compliant project a extremely narrow and the north south dynamics gets cut back by 14

feet a building that is not buildable given the depths that are needed so it would be a difficult building to build to structurally build you squeeze between the tower of lansing and at the once you squeeze those it's difficult to develop a project. >> may i weigh in there's been a lot of discussion with staff two years the feeling from the staff standpoint was the rincon hill plan was that the rincon hill plan intent the reason it is zoned for 4 hundred feet the intent to put the tower spacing and judge where the toddler tower should go this i say thinking a 4 hundred foot tower

wouldn't make sense on this site with the tower facing reduction but at the lower height made more sense but given you wouldn't want to do a tower on this site that has the exception of the tower site but that makes sense difficult issue director ram is that the fact that rincon hill wanted to if turnout the way it was the previous commission regrets they approved it the way it is why is the thing doing there it doesn't makes sense what is the next layer the discussion is that adhering to the basics policies by which we create city gentrification in 83

when the director making reduce initiate the downtown plan how to identify and maintain a balance for awful well knowing that much much taller building will i've got to tell you sprout up in the san francisco landscape we know coming down from the freeway of oakland rincon hill one was a huge mistake we're starting to go into the new york way of building no one will build in new york because they sit too close to the freeway with no breathing room around them this building falls within the con narrations so what did we do about height and bulk and tower situation and more than bulky mentioned by still creating

streets and visibility without starting to block the city off i mean, i think your guidance on making it a lower building is great but i still think i prefer a building which would also not supply our legislation i want to leave it with that basically things i appreciate and things i see as good moves but something i know that pines has spoken with the city for many, many years they're trying but still challenges i have problems with but i'm pleased to hear what everyone else says. >> commissioner richards. >> we saw with a couple of

things i think we have a couple of projects 1-800 hundred market street it was not a allowance we pushed back on design and mobility issues every time we extend exceptions and exemption we're eroding the ability of the city i see director ram will understand trying to create a situation in san francisco this design to me goes against what i believe good upper design facing the 88 fiat is 24 percent the diagonal is a building for a size of 51 to 55 feet as currently stand and it is a lot actual support a higher building whether it go is to 4 hundred or

3 hundred feet with the appropriate separation and sculpt and massaging it will be more appropriate and hopefully code compliant were one other aside aside the directors commented and formally requested any approval for the potential of the co-traffic flow lane on the bridge and they said that it should be transit first policy impacts the economic viability u vital of the city not having good transportation they also said without significant investment in the transportation will worsen the effective of the

bus service and the transbay center and effects the viability is critical to contra flow to the bridge and the new transbay center will cut across this parcel into the existing podium not bagging my decision this is a database with all that going on you're welcome to comment. >> i'm happy to respond to the news relative to the transbay they have commissions a study they asked us a while back months ago to meet with their consultant with m t c called arab we did that met with them several times the first initial studies they have opposed that didn't cross the property the late round of options did have

this impact on the property all of them actually go through the 411 harrison not shown on the screen at the moment as an existing i think historic building that needs to be condemned and demolished so we're happy to work with ac transit and reached out to them per the consultant viable is one that just kind of touches the corner of site and that will my require us to reduce the corner by 5 units and that can be done i think the other two options the tighter swing of the option option one is more impactful and impacted by the 10s there's a

way to design that out i think that is just a study and a lot of constituents caltrain and others i don't know if they view that contra flow and happening. >> one more question if you're trying to achieve the same amount of units this design has in a code compliant won't reach 4 hundred feet how many feet tall does that have to go. >> we could do the math the way the site is set up in its triangular form there's an interesting height map line across it the pronounced where it is is a 65 foot limit and line that was drawn across the site and the neighbors sites where the 4 hundred foot tower

sits it gets squeezed so i think that is a difficult design to just take that pure you know code and map conforming less about the rincon hill code for the size of towers more about the fact that the map has a line that moves from 4 hundred to 65 we need to stay - when achieving the best answer we could create a housing project. >> why not ask for an exception on the 65 feet. >> you could do that and move the tower that's an officer, what we did we were able to reduce the decision making to real 2 exceptions one so for the tower separation from 45 and one

for the bulk we pet that and reduced the size of the floor plate of the tower we existed that down to 2 but going down and restrict that we'll allow for a larger tower. >> hey, we have a project we are going to build it and oh by the way, it's under the footage. >> we'll not. >> you have your projects you'll conform to the project. >> it is the way is reads i'll see what my fellow commissioners have to say. >> there's a lot of discussion with the staff we talked about you know changing the 65 height limit and the staff felt more comfortable coping the 65 feet adjacent to the freeway and adjudicating closer to harrison street if i increased the height

limit it is more difficult to accommodate the transit we have a podium there so you're taking 5 or 10 units out of the podium as opposed to the whole tore to make sense to keep the 65 feet against the freeway and looking at putting the mass of building on harrison street i'll see what my fellow commissioners have to say. >> commissioner antonini. >> i voted for rincon hill plan including all the towers that are being built we wanted to put towers on hills that makes more sense than the valencia and the gentrification is working anti well as a result point up in the staff report the 399 got an

tower exception two as well as 375 i remember the discussion an 399 but arc today's they are putting two buildings and the compromise to have one tower that is aesthetically better i think this is it brought it closer to rincon hill they needed to tower exceptions correct me if i am wrong if anyone knows i'm quite sure about 375 but maybe a similar situation. >> so the separation is between this building and the 45 lansing is somewhat similar to the situation between number one and 399 fremont if i'm not mistaken i a point of information, sir

can answer this question what's the definition of a tore is it over 85 feet considered a tower? >> in the rincon hill it is over hundred and 10. >> hundred and 10 oh, but this qualifies as a a tower our hundred and 7 three or four hundred presumably the tower that's the higher tower would be showing so narrow away from lansing does that make it consistent. >> yes. if it were set back at hundred and 10 feet we're talking about the difference in between one event and hundred 73. >> not having the set back there is an area as it relates to jasper we call is lansing the

prospective of having the building be sort of a fit at 2 hundred feet i'll call is and zoning versus 4 hundred was a pleasing thing again rincon hill side and 45 not saying that we still got a lot of harrison street between it we're talking about the difference between one 10 and one 75 a difference of 65 feet it is tight. >> but in terms of the separation to be compliant the upper parts of tower would be hundred 15; is that correct. >> that's correct. >> what the modifications you're asking us to do what would the separation been on the upper parts of the tower. >> from one 10 to one 75. >> between the towers to 82. >> 82 that's the change.

>> from harrison street. >> the width of harrison street it is similar to what it is between 39 fremont and at least the second tower of number one rincon hill i think that is the closer wound i'm not sure but in any case yeah. it sound like a good compromise to me makes sense especially, if people are concerned about too many towers it still has the appearance a of a tower it would be subsidiary to all the towers under construction you have 340 out of ground and another 1 on the street so is it seems like a reasonable compromised director ram i thought that caltrain