>> we broke ground in december of last year. we broke ground the day after sandy hook connecticut and had a moment of silence here. it's really great to see the silence that

we experienced then and we've experienced over the years in this playground is now filled with these voices. >> 321, okay. [ applause ] >> the park was kind of bleak. it was scary and over grown. we started to help maclaren park when we found there wasn't any money in the bond for this park maclaren. we spent time for funding. it was expensive to raise money for this and there were a lot of delays. a lot of it was just the mural, the sprinklers and we didn't have any grass. it was that bad. we worked on sprinkler heads and grass and we fixed everything. we

worked hard collecting everything. we had about 400 group members. every a little bit helped and now the park is busy all week. there is people with kids using the park and using strollers and now it's safer by utilizing it. >> maclaren park being the largest second park one of the best kept secrets. what's exciting about this activation in particular is that it's the first of many. it's also representation of our city coming together but not only on the bureaucratic side of things. but also our neighbors, neighbors helped this happen. we are thrilled that today we are seeing the fruition of all that work in this city's open space. >> when we got involved with this park there was a broken swing set and half of -- for

me, one thing i really like to point out to other groups is that when you are competing for funding in a hole on the ground, you need to articulate what you need for your park. i always point as this sight as a model for other communities. >> i hope we continue to work on the other empty pits that are here. there are still a lot of areas that need help at maclaren park. we hope grants and money will be available to continue to improve this park to make it shine. it's a really hidden jewel. a lot of people don't know it's here. >> when the new california

academy of sciences opened in 2008, it quickly became one of the top tourist magnets in the city. part of the cal academies' astronomical success is the weekly nightlife party. >> i am joined by helen, who is here to school me on all the nocturnal activities that are getting ready to take place here. tell us a little about what we can expect to see at nightlife. >> we open up the doors every thursday night at the california academy of sciences. there are certain things you can see every week >> tuesday, january 19th, 2016. welcome to members of the public and happy new year. madame secretary, can please call the first item. >> thank you, madame chair, the first item of business is no. 1, roll call, commission members please respond when i call your name, commissioner intel pentium

pimentel. >> commission singh? >> yes. >> commission mondejar is absent. >> commission bust os. >> present. >> made chair rosales. item 2, announcements, a, the next regularly scheduled meeting will be held on february2nd, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. at city hall, room 116. b announcement of prohibition of sound producing electronic devices during the meeting. please be advised that the ringing and use of cell phones, and pagers and similarly sound-producing electronic devices are prohibited that the meeting. please be advised that the chair may order the removal of the from meeting room of any person responsible for the raining or use of a cell phone, pager or other similarly

sound-producing electronic devices. c, announcement of time allotment form public comment. please advised a member of the public has up to 3 minutes to make pertinent public comments on each agenda item unless the commission adopts a shorter period on any item. it is strongly recommended that members of the public, who wish to address the commission fill out speaker card and return to the commission secretary. the next order of business is item 3, report on the actions taken at a previously could closed session meeting, if any. there are no reportable actions. the next order of business is item 4, matters of unfinished business. there are no matters of unfinished business. the next order of business is item 5 matters of new business, consisting of consent and regular agenda. first the consent agenda. 5a. approval of minutes for the special meeting of november 3rd,

2015. made m chair. >> do we have any speaker cards for this item? >> not for the minutes, no. >> commissioners do we have any comments, edits, motions regarding the minutes of november 3, 2015. >> i morph that. >> commissioner singh has moved. commissioner bustos second. please call the roll. >> please announce your vote when i call your name. >> commissioner pimentel. >> hay. >> commissioner mondejar is absent. >> commissioner singh. >> yes. >> commissioner bustos. >> yes. >> madame chair rosales. >> yes. >> i have four ayes and one absent. >> minutes are adopted. please call the next item.

>> the next agenda item 5b and 5c related to the transbay redevelopment plan amendment will be heard together, but acted on separate lymph 5b approving the report to the board of supervisors on the amendment to the redevelopment plan for the transbay redevelopment project area to increase the maximum height limit from 300' to 400' on block 1 of zone 1 of the transbay redevelopment project area and authorizing transmittal of the report to the board of supervisors. transbay redevelopment project area discussion and action, resolution no. 12016 and 5c adopting environmental review findings pursuant to the california environment quality act uniapproving the amendment to the redevelopment plan for the transbay redevelopment project area to increase the multnomah

maximum height limit from 300' to 400', referring the redevelopment plan to the planning commission for its report and recommendation on the commission for its report and recommendations on the redevelopment plan amendment and conformance with the general plan and recommending the redevelopment plan amendment to the board of supervisors for approval. transbay redevelopment project arguing, discussion and action resolution no. 2016. madame director. >> >> good afternoon [kpha-eurpbgsz/] good afternoon to the members of the public. thank you so very much for joining us. commissioners as you know the transbay redevelopment plan was adopted about a decade ago, and one of the primary goals is to provide housing, especially housing at the deepest income-levels for

both rental and ownership opportunities and we're well-underway in the transbay area in doing that in so-called zone 1 or the land within your jurisdiction. you adopted an exclusive negotiating agreement or authorized that in the fall of 2014 for a proposed project on transbay block 1. we have made some substantial changes to the proposed terms of exclusive negotiating agreement that provide for additional public benefit, one of them to provide greater affordable housing on-site, that is 40% overall and we'll work through the components of that as part of a revised temple sheet term attached to your materials. staff will present the urban design basis and again the affordable housing and what would be provided on a project, should you authorize this plan amendment to move forward. we would bring subsequent to you and the board of supervisors

development agreement that would authorize the transfer. with that i would like to ask our senior real estate development specialist in ocii's real estate division to kick off this presentation. >> good afternoon, executive director bohee and good afternoon madame chair and members, senior real estate development specialist with ocii and staff is recommending an amendment to increase the high limit on block 1. my presentation will include the reason for the plan amendment, background on block 1 the benefits of the plan amendments, a summary of the proposed block 1 development project terms and amenities, a review of the ocii's urban design analysis

and environmental review. community outreach conducted to-date and ocii's responses to concerns and finally present the requested commission actions and review next steps. the redevelopment plan adopted in 2006 divides the project area into two zones and establishes the land use controls for each zone. in zone 1 the development controls define development is it standards and in zone 2 the san francisco planning code applies. the redevelopment plan provides for a maximum highlight limit of 300' on block 1 and would increase block 1's maximum height limit to 400'. the plan amendment would help achieve goals and objectives and provide public benefits including the creation of affordability and market-rate housing opportunities and community identity and built form that ensures high-quality architectural and urban design

standards. as you can see in this map, it details zone 1 and zone 2 and the circled area on the map is block 1. which again is the only block affected by the plan amendment. block 1 is located on folsom street between main and spear streets. this redevelopment plan specifies the block 1 land use as downtown residential and provides for a maximum height limit of 300' on block 1. the reason for the plan amendment, ocii owns land within block 1 and are working towards abagreement to develop the property as mixed income homeownership housing. in 2014 the commission authorized an exclusive negotiating agreement or ena with two project alternatives: one was a 300' tower and the other was a 400' tower. ocii has determined that had a 400' tower is the preferred

alternative and therefore, recommending plan amendment which allows for consideration of the proposed block 1 project featuring 400' high-rise building increasing the oriole number of housing unit from 318 to 391. increase the overall project affordability from 35% to 40%. and allow for a taller tower that better compliments the downtown skyline and provides for a more elegant design. requirements for a plan amendment: state redevelopment law specifis a number of requirements for redevelopment plan amendments. staff is prepared the required report to the board of supervisors, which contains background information on the plan amendment. ocii in consultation with the planning department, has prepared an addendum to the 2004 environmental report for the transbay redevelopment project. the notice of today's commission hearing was sent to project area property owners and occupants, 30 days prior to the hear, and

the hearing notice was also published in the examiner for three consecutive weeks. the commission will consider approving the report to board and plan amendments and if approved by the commission, the planning commission would consider the plan amendment in its conform [kwra-pbgs/] with the general plan and the bdr would conduct a public hearing and consider adoption of the plan amendment. board of supervisors's hearing will be notices in the same manner as the commission's hearing n. this map you can see the current parcelization, lot 0p 27 to the north is owned by ocii and former agency purchased the property in 2003 for affordable housing purposes. the remaining parcels are owned by fisherman spire and the block square footage is nearly 54,000 square feet. comparison of the two alternatives with the 300' tower and 400'

tower. as i mentioned before the 00' tower includes3 18 homes of which 112 would be affordable. in the tower would be locate in the first three-levels. the alternative with the 400' tower increases the number of units to 391, of which 156 or 40% would be affordable. also the affordable runts in the tower would be interspersed throughout floors 1 through 26. so the 400' tower alternative results in 73 overall more housing units, 44 more affordable units and 5% more affordable and bmr units interspersed through floors 1-26.

con straiting on the 400' alternative, combined affordable and market-rate homeownership with 39' tower on eastside of block 16789 there are two with residential podium buildings between 65-80' tall and south and west tidesides of the board. there is a shared underground parking facility. there is just over 9,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor and all amenilities will be shareded equally by all residents. you can see the layout of the proposed development program for the 400' tower. spear street to the east, main street to the west and folsom to the south. this is the site plan for the proposed 400' project. retail space is in orange. the townhomes are in blue

and green and area on the left points to the -- the arrow on the left pointeds to podium entrances and the other indicates tower entrance. this slide shows project images, to the left we have a view of the 400' tower. and top right, street view looking towards the northwest. and over in the lower right, the street view towards the gap "pacific seasonings' building. proposed term of disposition and development agreement: the developer would make a $2 million good-faith deposit upon commission approval of the opdda and the land will be transferred at no less than fair market value and value formality ocii owned property is estimated to be $19.2 million. under the ena, the partis agreed that the developer would pay the land price in cash at the close

escrow and ocii provides a total subsidy of $20.9 million in the proposed terms the developer will construct the 76 units without a subsidy from ocii. the construction of these units will constitute payment of the land price. this will result in a net savings of $1.7 million to ocii. [kpwh-epbs/]ment commencement of the project would begin in january 2016 and completion no later than 40 months from commencement. focusing on affordable housing, the proposed terms all of the affordable units sold through ocii's limited equity program to ensure that the units will be permanently affordable.

76 ocii affordable units located n the podium would be affordable to households 80-100 area ever area median income and sample price for two-bedroom -- $311,000 at 100% ami and developer affordable units locate in the tower and townhomes would be priceded at 100-120% of ami. at 100% of ami, sample sales price is $384,000. note these prices are in 2015 dollars. the homeowners' association structure, the projects dues for the hoa for bmr $00-$750 per unit per month and for any bmr unit at 80% of

ami, with hoa dues above $850 per month at unit closing the vern will set aside an amount to cover excess hoa dues over the period of 7.5 years. proposed amenities in the lobby and open space, all residents have equal access to amenities including outdoor cord yard on level 2 of the podium and outside roof garden at level 5 the roof of the townhomes and shared access to the lobby attendant and 5th floor lounge area. in terms of parking, there will be 300 underground parking and 344 spaces of parking six car-share stalls and 10 electric vehicle charging stations and 150 bicycle parking spaces. parking parity between mr

and bmr is 1 :1 ratio. park ing available to bmr at a blow-market cost of the lesser of 1/2 market-rate or operating cost. alt this time i'm going turn the presentation to josé campos, who is the manager of planning and design review for ocii. and he is going to present the urban design analysis and the environmental review. >> thank you. >> thank you, marie. my name is josé campos, as marie munson mentioned and i'm the manager of planning and design review for ocii and i would like to share with you how the staff came to the conclusion that we would recommend a 400' tower versus the 300' tower that was originally designed in the transbay design for

development process. to understand that, i think we need to go back to the beginning of the transbay program and its community planning effort. the transbay design for development document was adopted and published in 2003, and this was two years prior to the plan adoption. it was through a community process that we -- the agency -- decided that this part of san francisco should see additional high-rise development, and the creation of a new residential high-rise district in transbay. so it was over ten years ago that this happened. and since then, many things have changed. first, to the south of the district, within the rincon hill

area, we have seen higher heights. these heights include towers that are nearby this site just across folsom street. as well, significantly increased heights on top of rincon hill. up to 550 and above. on block 1, we thought that a 300' height limit at time of plan adoption in 2005 would be appropriate because we didn't understand the growth that the city's skyline would witness. north of the transbay zone 1 area, which is along folsom street in 2012, the transbay -- i'm sorry, the transit center district plan was adopted and including heights as high as 1070' which is sales force tower. i will show some visualization

studies that we did to help determine what kind of impact this proposal would have to increase the height from 300' to 400' on the city's skyline, as well as on the neighborhood, as vieweds as a pedestrian or resident in the district. these are basically the height maps that show the existing structures surrounding block 1. block 1 is in the darker blue. but you can see in front of block 1 we have the gap building, which is basically ranges in height from 90' at podium to 240' at the highest floor and approximately 289', that is the block between block 1 and the embarcadero roadway. if you look to -- i'll show you here with my cursor -- if you look directly to the south of the block 1 project you have the

infinity project, which has a tower here on spear street at 400'. and also one at 350' here. and the luna project about to open has a tower of 400'. and 350' here. the kind of heights that we're seeing in the district to the south of what we call transbay 1 in the rincon hill district were not anticipated at the time we established the design in the redevelopment plan. the height of the rincon tower is labeled here at 550'. and, in fact the actual height, when you consider the 10% allotment that the planning code allowed is 605'. because that tower is on top of a hill, the perception of height is much greater. and now to the north, in 2012, the transit center district plan was adopted. and that covered the entire

transbay redevelopment project area, the portion that is north of folsom street, but also incorporated a lot larger area. the northern portion of the area was rezoned to increase the height significantly. so we have the sales force tower under construction, which was always to be seen as the tallest building in san francisco at the point in time that we had created the design for development document. at that point we were looking at 550' as the highest, but in addition, the transit center district plan increased heights 850 and 700' on several parcels many of which are nearby between mission street and howard street. so i just wanted to share this with you, so can you see the context in the sense that things have changed. when we created this new high-rise district in transbay,

basically the context was much different. it was lower -- we had lower heights and we were pushing the envelope. and at this point, we're now considering how to make sure that what we doing now in this -- not final, but mid-stage of implementation of transbay fits in with the context of the rest of the downtown area? so how we did that was by conducting an urban design amion. analysis and wanted to see what the impacts on not just the skyline or image of city, but the neighborhood and how it looks like from public spaces nearby? particularly rincon park, which is close and have open spaces as a pedestrian you experience it in a different way than the skyline. we did analysis of the skyline from

afar and am analyses of how the tower height increase would impact the local environment, the neighborhood environment? so i will share with you some of these analyses. i wanted to tell you we looked at the same vantage points from 2000, from the very popular and well-known vantage points and vistas that you have in the city, from twin peaks, from the top of dolores park and bernal heights and telegraph hill, et cetera. we found the 300' height tower was barely visible and even the 400' tower was really not visible or barely recognizable for most of these vantage points from the south, and from the west of the project. now the biggest impact really on the skyline is the view from the water, from the bay.

, in fact, it's really from treasure island where you probably have the biggest impacts as someone actually on land, looking at the skyline. it's looking towards the downtown from treasure island, where you have the largest, most significant impact of how the building height would increase, would this increase in building height would impact basically the image of city? from yerba buena island we have a great vantage point from the area and i wanted to share with you some of the viewpoints. this image is actually a photo taken from yerba buena island, adjacent to treasure island, looking at san francisco skyline as it is today. the site, you will see if you follow my cursor, you may be able to distinguish the gap building which is currently at the embarcadero and behind the gap building is basically where the proposed tower for block 1

would be located. in order for us to really determine how the city is going to look like with a 300 or 400' tower to see how the proposed projects the high-rises either under construction or soon to be under construction will look? so we wanted to see the future of the city's skyline. so this is the future of downtown san francisco. you can see from yerba buena island, the sales force tower at its peak basically demarcating the transit hub of san francisco and the region. you can also see just how rincon hill gets filled out in some of the transbay parcels such as parcel f or block 5, which is under construction. and parcel 4, which you really can't see is basically shaping the skyline into the lower valley around folsom this. is with the 300'

tower and you can barely see behind the gap building here. if you look at it from the point of view of a 400' tower you can see how the 400' building starts to cap off or crown the gap building. you can see that does have an impact. you can start to see it, but really is minimal as far as shaping the skyline. another impressive view of san francisco is when you are on a vehicle driving across the bay bridge and looking at the city's skyline. from this vantage point, from the bay bridge, again, the most dramatic impacts that this tower will have on the image of san francisco is coming from the water n. this case coming from the bay and looking straight at the skyline. which you see is the embarcadero frontage and rincon park

quite clearly and the gap building was actually designed to step up to the edge of the city. and the rest of downtown san francisco as you see it today in this section of downtown. this is a rendering of how the future downtown will look, with some of the future development super imposed on this project, including 75 howard, the sales force tower, parcel f at its current massing and height proposal and the 300' building that you see right behind the gap. that was the original proposal in 2003 as far as the heights. this shows a little bit of the proposed architecture, that we can talk to you further about and will review as part of an approval of the project at a later hearing. but we showed you what that proposed architecture would look like

at 300' and then at 400'. that is how the impact would be as you are driving across the bay bridge. that is what you would see differently than with a 300' tower. we feel that the stepping-up, that you have heard about and that i will mention from the waterfront up to the downtown and to the high-rises of the downtown still works with the 400' tower. you see that the gap building creates that edge of the city and the tower behind it, which is the block 1 project fits in within that view point. we also wanted to share with you a perspective if you were on a boat. actually if you were on a boat or coming on the ferry, looking at the skyline and this is probably the most dramatic view you would see, directly in front. most of the viewing of this property will not be

accessible unless you are on the water, either on the bridge or far way as you saw from yerba buena island. if you happen to be on a water vehicle and approaching the gap building, approaching folsom street, this is what you see today. this is what you will see in the future as the buildings there are being approved or approved are getting built and the proposal at 300'. and here you have the proposal at 400'. as you can see, similar heights of the buildings across the street at folsom at infinity and luna development and also see that the development on rincon hill and financial district, the transbay area, transit center area south of market are much taller. this is just another image that we wanted to share with you. this is done by the architects, studio gang and you can see

the outline of the architecture of this proposed block 1 tower, 300', and at 400'. so we also wanted to make sure we were studying how it looked in the neighborhood? if you lived in rincon -- near rincon park or on rincon hill on transbay district, what would be the impact be as a pedestrian walking around? we took some views from rincon park and this is existing. and here is what is proposed development, the 75 howard project on the right. and some additional buildings on rincon hill. this has the 300' tower behind the gap building where it's not visible, really. with the 400' tower from rincon park, it starts to become visible. the impact as a pedestrian,

as you would see the 400' tower from nearby neighborhood this. is one vantage point. we wanted to show you one on folsom street this. is looking towards folsom street. this is just a more dramatic example of viewing this building from the open space, and from the waterfront. here is existing. here is with the proposed development and 300'. and then there is the tower at 400'. as you can see it matches heights in the vicinity, but also follows the rhythm of the skyline as heights are higher in the north and also to the south atop rincon hill. looking from folsom street, this is folsom street today near essex, i believe. looking straight towards

yerba buena island at the terminus of construction and the beginning of the project being built. what it would look like once the projects are completed is that. so this is folsom with the transbay redevelopment project's built that has been approved to-date. and then it also shows 300' tower at the end of folsom street. and you'll see what the difference is between 300' tower, which my cursor shows this is block 1, and that is the 400' tower. that is the impact from folsom street walking towards the bay. and closer up, this is the existing conditions with the gap building, the rear portion of the gap building. this is block 1 and maybe the best view of what it looks like today these are the small one-story buildings that would be

demolished as part of the project when the lots get consolidated, the tower and podium structures would sit there. at 300', it would look like that and from an urban design perspective, once you are beyond 85' walking you don't really see it and no impact with the exception of perhaps some shadowing. so that can be seen even probably more informatively through a video that i would like to share with you. we did a time-lapse video of how the building looks at 400' as one walks across the embarcadero adjacent to rincon park, at 300' and at

400'. here it is at 300'. so this is a time-lapse. that is the building at 300' walking the length of rincon park and at some point it's just completely hidden behind the gap building. and then it reappears. but as you can see at 300' structure, it's not that tall. at 400' it becomes a little bit more evident. the architecture behind the gap buildion and from folsom you have a better view of the entire building . and from this vantage point, it's not such a big impact on the waterfront.

excuse me, as i bring up the power point presentation. i mentioned to you impact that a tall tower could have that we take very seriously is required to be studied pursuant to the california environment quality act. it's part of our environmental review we studied the shadow impact and wind impact would be of a taller tower?

the block 1 project was studied as part of the development scenario for the entire redevelopment area under the environmental impact report certified by the commission prior to adoption, certified in 2004 and plan adoption happened in 2005. the analyses that was done in that environmental impact report was that higher intensity of land use than what is currently being proposed in the development of block 1 now. you might wonder why is that the case? if the building is actually taller? well, basically, when we did the environmental analysis we maxized development to the point that we wanted to make sure that we saw the impacts of really maxing out on number of units and square footage of

retail? at the point in time of developing the development [krao-upblz/] refinements on building massing and making the tower even more slender, the ultimate result even with a higher height we have less units than what was studied in the eir. we have less total square footage than what was studied in the eir and also less retail square footage than what was studied in the eir. all of those, the impacts that were studied in the eir were for uses and intensities greater than what is currently being proposed. so what we looked at really following ceqa was the project that was before you today, which is the increase in height from 300 to 400'. so following ceqa, we prepared an addendum, and we looked at the impacts of that increase in height and we determined those impacts that needed to be studied were shadow and wind.

the addendum that you have before you also studied or discussed transportation and aesthetics, but with respect to ceqa, what we really required to look at was the impact of the physical structure going higher 100'? we did a very thorough shadow study and did wind analysis that determined there were no hazardous conditions resulting from the increase in height and that the pedestrian comfort-level on all points that were studied were satisfactory to the planning code's requirements. i want to share with you some details about the shadow analysis, that we feel is very important. as mentioned we did a very rigorous study and took very seriously the impact that the tower increase height could have to the whole shadow shed area, which is an area that

goes as far as the transit center -- the transit terminal itself and city park that will be located above it through rincon park. we studied six parks in general. we had a very deliberate analysis of impacts that maybe wouldn't have been required to have been done, but we made sure that not only did we apply san francisco planning code section 295, which is basically prop k and the sunlight ordinance, in a way that really isn't required. but we decided to do it because it's important and we wanted to make sure that we measure adequately the shadow impacts. we also looked at parks that were not developed yet. that is not normally the methodology, but we wanted to make sure that we understood the impacts on

the transbay park and city park on top of the terminal. what the study conclude is that the maximum increase in shadow over an affected park will never exceed what is called -- well, 0.49% of theoretically available sunlight, which is the measure that planning code section 295 describes in analyzing what kind of potential shadow a building could have on an open space? what it basically does is it measures the full area of the park, of the open space in question, and it's a factor of the amount of sun that could potentially shine if there were no buildings around it, given the sunlight that happens from sunrise to sunset on an annual basis.

the shadow analysisdemed determined that the worst impact was at this level .049% decrease in potential sunlight, in this case it was in the spear street plaza, which i will show you on a map. here in this table you can see these are the six parks that we studied. you will note that we looked at different factors of the shadowing. we wanted to know how many days the park could be shadowed potentially? even just a small increase in shadow as a result of this height increase, as you can see and i'm going to focus on rincon park, there would be 28 actual days per year when new shadow would occur. what we saw in rincon park and also at the spear street terrace was that the biggest

shadow impact wasn't during the winter solstice. there is more around the equinox, spring and fall. what we also noticed was the bottom row, you'll see that the additional duration of shadow on the day of the absolute maximum shadow was no greater in rincon park than 45 minutes. as you'll see in the video that i'm go showing you, that impact happens in the late afternoon somewhere between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. i mentioned to you earlier what we call "theoretically available annual sunlight." and with the case of rincon park, the study showed that the increase from 300' to 400' would actually add only this much 0.34% of annual shade hang shading

than the 300'. you can see in order of magnitude how the shadow impacts the park and usability of the parks when looked at on certain days of the year. this video was produced by our consultant that did the shadow analysis. and it starts with the summer solstice june 21st and shows the affect around the equinox would be and also shows you the winter solstice, when shadows are longer, and last longer around the city.

the difference in basically the 300' and 400' shadow of this tower is readily visible in the video and the darker shade indicates 300' massing and lighter blue -- if you follow in the video that incremental lighter-blue shade, you'll see how the increase would result in certain shadows on certain parts of the project area, and the open spaces that we discussed. you'll also note that we have included some shadows of existing buildings, and then for the pipeline projects, you'll see that the buildings that we think will be developed, we have outlined in just a light-gray outline. it doesn't really impact the shadow, but you can visualize what the cumulative effects could be once those buildings are built on

the general shadow on these open spaces. with that information, i'm going to show you the video. so here is the summer solstice and it's time-lapsed. you can see actually the increases is the darker blue. you can see the height increase represented by this darker-blue, that currently you cannot see on public streets. and this only shows the shadow on public streets and open spaces. you can see around 3 o'clock that a portion of folsom street is slightly more shadowed and on the day of the summer solstice it starts to impact barely the embarcadero around the end of the day. this counts for both spring and -- oops -- here again, you see lighter-blue is the actual tower. and 300' and increment is represented by the darker-blue as it

impacts spear street plaza which is a privately-owned space. the shadow on rincon park enters in it the afternoon and exits over the restaurant buildings towards the end of the day. this is the winter solstice. you can see how it tracks the gap building. you can make out the shape of the gap building and this increase in height adds some shadow to the northern portion of rincon hill in the early afternoon -- i'm sorry, rincon park in the early afternoon.

so we were concerned about these impacts of this height increase. there were community meetings at which this project was discussed, and here is a listing of them. culminated in the final meeting that we had recently at transbay citizens advisory committee, where we showed some of the information that we have from the shadow studies, our addendum and basically the analyses of the urban design as seen from the city's skyline or from the neighborhood. and the citizens advisory committee recommended approval of the plan amendment after that presentation. recently we received more concerns in the form of letters from members of the community and they are asking about the same sorts of things that we initially had concerns about. their concerns are about the

impact that this higher tower would have on the city skyline on the feel of neighborhood, and on shadows on rincon park? they mentioned that this plan amendment would require variation in the development controls of the transbay design guidelines and development controls. and it also mentions in some of these letters that we received, that we didn't do an adequate look at the environmental impacts. so i wanted to share with you some of our responses to these concerns: the first concern was that it adversely impacts the urban form and inconsistent with city plans and policies. this is in relationship to the general plan and the urban design elements, which is often quoted in these protest letters. there is a portion of the general plan that guides urban design and one

principle in that portion, which is the urban design element, describes how heights of buildings are better on the tops of hills to create -- to accentuate. to look at the general plan element and basically realized these principles. in the case of transbay and in this area we have the difference in context that i described initial. where you have the higher heights on the hill atop rincon hill at 550', really 605' at the peak of rincon hill that is accentuated

the grade and north of market and more prominently south of market the towers. we have the two areas basically to the north, immediately adjacent and to the south also immediate adjacent at folsom boulevard and transby. basically that edge of the downtown really creates a definitive downtown skyline. the edge of the downtown with the waterfront is different than perhaps the kind of edge you would see in the central waterfront or areas that are more low-scale. we believe that the tower as proposed at 400' on block 1 actually does create the stepping-down. because of the fact that along the waterfront, along the embarcadero we

have the gap building and recently looked at the 75 howard street. but other structures that are in 200' height range, that serve as basically the forecount forecourt of the waterfront and behind the gap building that you have seen throughovisual representations in our view does create that accurate and adequate stepping down from the downtown mound, and from the higher heights from rincon hill. so we believe and we felt when we basically started to look at more closely this increase in height, that the urban design element was, in fact, being adhered to in this specific part of the urban design, the stepping-down to the waterfront was being adhered to.

a variation is basically the agency's ability to change the rules for a certain development control, meeting certain findings. in this case, what we are proposing as a plan amendment. so the plan amendment will actually change the rules fully on this block. the plan amendment is going to increase the height from 300' to 400' and therefore, we would not come to the commission and request a variation. because at the point in time if this plan amendment is approved, we have the development proposal before you in the schematic design and also amend the development controls and design guidelines for transbay to be in accordance with the redevelopment plan. one of the concerns -- i think one of the biggest concerns we have heard from members of the public is just the increase in shading on the open spaces, on the public open

spaces such as rincon park. we have shown through the analyses that we presented to you, through the videos, through the shadow studies and through our environmental review; that the impact is really minimal. the impact that you see on the park is in areas in in -- in rincon park -- are in areas that are hard-scaped or also aboved the roofs of the restaurants. so we really cannot agree with the idea it's impacting substantially the enjoyment and recreational use of the park. the other mention was some of the environmental impacts were not considered in our addendum and two in particular were pointed out. one was hydrology and the other was traffic. the question of whether or not flooding because of sea-level rise or flooding along the waterfront in a storm event, what would that impact be? well, the addendum

analyzed the increase in height of the tower. the city requires us to actually comply with ordinances that would result in the block 1 development having to make sure that it's resistant to certain load floods. we have looked at maps and the maps laid out in the city ordinances by puc and fema maps and city ordinance requires that within the 100-year existing flood zone has floods resistant. in any case, we would be required, if this development were in a flood zone, we would be required or at least recommended and we

would definitely move forward with ensuring that the building is flood resistant and there are certain measures that we're looking at to ensure that would happen in the case of flooding. now with respect to traffic, as i mentioned to you earlier, the amount of development on this site is actually less than -- the intensity of land use is less than what was studied in the eir, and as a result, the traffic generated would be less than what was originally authorized and cleared in the original eir. so i'm going to pass it on to marie munson and it you have questions with respect to the environmental impact report, the author of our addendum from the san francisco planning department is also present. >> thank you, josé. i just wanted to provide a list of future opportunities for community input: planning commission

hearing will be in february. you will consider the opa dda schematic design and control amendments in march. today again we're just focusing on the plan amendment, which would then allow you to consider the proposed development project. so actually i'm sorry that goes to the citizens advisory committee in march, and then it will come to you in april, the dda, schematic design and development controls amendment. the board of supervisors will meet to consider the plan amendment and then also in may of 2016, the board of supervisors needs to consider the 3 3433 report, require and redevelopment law that needs to be demonstrated that the property will not transfer at a price that is less than fair-market value that. will be another hearing and the board of

supervisors makes that decision and finding. today staff is asking to you approve the report to the board of supervisors. adopt the environmental review findings pursuant to ceqa, approve the plan amendment, refer the plan amendment to the planning commission, and recommend the plan amendment to the board of supervisors for its approval and adoption. just to tie those together, these are next steps. adding to that is the land closure in the family 2016, construction start early 2017. that ends our presentation. we have several people here we have

planning staff from oci and we have representatives from the developer, and we have the architect. thank you. >> thank you. we will consider public comment on the items. do we have speaker cards? >> we do, over 20. i will count them five at a time. rob pool. donald. greg onsell. greg cookston and alice dur oinger. >> i'm rob pool the project manager of the san francisco housing action coalition and members supported non-profit advocates for well-zioned and well-located housing in all levels of affordability in san francisco and i believe it's my first

time speaking at this commission meet and i'm excited. the plans were presented to us in october of 2014. and in regards to the upzoning, we absolutely support using the increased height to deliver more affordability within the project. as a policy, something that we support across the city because of the benefits it can deliver. i think what this project has achieved is unprecedented in san francisco, 40% on-site affordable housing for a building is pretty remarkable. it's not like 5m or mission rock, which had much greater scale, which had job housing linkage fees to achieve the 40% marks this. is just one residential building and we as an organization have never seen that. that can only be achieved because of the added height and i would like to say that, i think 70 extra units and 60% of those are below market rate and just speaks for itself.

to add to this, could i have the projector please and think about who these bmrs serve? this is from the planning department's website. if you look between 70-120% ami, the people purchasing these homes is construction workers, postal clerk, teachers, first-responders, electricians, that is -- that is our middle-class. these are the people being squeezed out of the city and these this project is providing homes for those people. is this clear for everyone? those are premise tremendous benefits, who we're building homes for and we're building more homes with increasing the height. we believe that the eir is solid and does not need to be reviewed again. i think the presentation showed that the increased height from

urban design standpoint fits in very well from the city and actually in ten years or so, this building will not look that tall relative to what else is in pipeline. we support the project and support the height increase and hope you can move it forward today. thank you. >> thank you,. can we have -- is commissioner pimentel is asking if you wouldn't mind sharing that with us? >> i can email that to you as well. >> good afternoon commissioners. i'm donald -- [speaker not understood] basically i'm a member of sf and sierra club member and very

active. acknowledging the housing shortage before our city in the last november election 57% of the sf voters passed legislation for more affordable housing. and tenant as agreed promotes health and wellness. what i like about the 160 folsom projects maintains and enhances public sight lines at 400'. the below market rate units will be mixed instead of being on the lower floors of the building. the developer will subsidize homeowner association dues. sponsoring the 391-unit building with 40% affordable spacious units in a white billionaire neighborhood where it costs today a market-rate $1600 a square foot to own a one bedroom/one bath condo and it's key to

infusing racial diversity while creating social equality in the transbay district community. none of the surrounding builds having any on-site affordable units and thus creating neighborhood equity and sustainability and at the same time protecting our local environment, rather than damaging suburban sprawl. it's mixed-use is diverse and healthy is green, is leed certified and accessible and sustainable and even traffic impact is lower than normal. by creating more spot zoning projects like this, it will bring down rents for san francisco tenants, normalize real estate valuations that become sustainable and affordable for young familis to transfer from low-income to working middle-class. please approve the height of this project. we are in a state of public emergency with our housing shortage.

thank you. >> thank you. >> speakers, can you please come to the far right, so we don't block the entrance? come on this way. thank you. mr. onsell. >> hello. i'm of -- the traffic is really bad and increasing from 300 to 400 adds more residents and more cars. it tooks 20 minutes going two-and-a-half blocks and it will increase the traffic and make it

worse. i walk from the bay bridge to the ferry building and i want to see the city, and i want people who are coming to visit san francisco seeing the city the way it is. i don't want to see a wall. thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. cookston? >> hello. i watched the animation of the shadows, i thought that was very interesting. the problem with animations is that they don't tell the complete truth. for instance, shadows don't confine themselves to streets. they cover buildings. they cover surfaces. they cover public areas. and that wasn't represented in that animation. that one particular area on spear

street, that little plaza they were talking about, it's right at the center of the infinity complex, who this developer built several years ago. that is where people to enjoy sunshine and where people have their lunch and enjoy the investment that they made at the infinity complex. there are 1400 people that live there and none of us contemplated a 400' and 426' tower going up right next door. i know myself when i bought my unit on the 42nd floor i was shown a diagram by the developer's agent that showed 300' tower on that property. i believe the developer already owned that property at the time. so clearly, the plan was to put a 300' building there. so i figured 42-floor, no problem, i'll be able to see this view and enjoy it on the basis that i moved from los angeles, got my beautiful home in san francisco. now i'm going to be looking

into the developer's third project. i don't think that is right. i have a real problem with that. everybody needs affordable housing here in san francisco. that is for sure. we all need it and we want it, but it looks like just a handful of additional people will benefit from it, 30, 40 families. the lumina folks will be impacted and other developments will be impacted. is it really worth compromising everybody's quality of life for a handful of additional affordable housing units? i would ask you to take this into consideration. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> cannot following people please come forward? ken chu, lee robins, lauren post, mary anne wallace and jerome dobson

>> resident of rincon hill and i have letters from ten residents unable to attend the meeting. they are all in opposition to the project. i'm here and i would like to speak to you about the quality of life that a 400' building would permanently impact to neighbors, and visitors in rincon hill by a 400' building and your role to make decisions that are for the common good. i will start with with the shadow. the shadow ordinance prevents buildings from shading public parks and city land. if rincon park were on city land, the proposed building at 160 folsom would be illegal. here is a shadow study. here is a shadow study that

we have donned and we have talked to staff at ocii and they agree this shadow analysis is accurate and so i will speak to a shadow that a 426' building would cast. this combined with other planned and approved projects in the area will substantially increase shading on rincon park and reduce the enjoyment and use of the park for residents and visitors alike. as you'll see from the red is the shading for a 300' project, and you'll see as it goes over to a 400' project, it's substantially increases the amount of shadow on rincon park. the shadow study for the

planning department determined five open spaces that would receive new shading from the 160 folsom project. publicly accessible projects, et cetera. the latter is now the temporary transit center, but it will become a park when the permanent transit center is ready. the project before you is about what is best for the public good. i want you to fully appreciate the quality of life of residents, workers and visitors to our neighborhood. we need to speak about traffic. ocii may claim that the eir was sufficient theoretically, but if you live in this neighborhood, you will know that between 3-7 p.m. monday through friday our neighborhood is in gridlock traffic. we also have approximately 7 new

high-rise buildings that are not occupied that will add to the current gridlock. please consider this when you are making your decision. you should also know that by law the state law requires developers provide 35% affordable housing. this deal that the city is making with the developer will provide an additional 5%. this is not currently known by the general public. would you please make this clear to the public that this new deal provides an additional 5% of affordable housing? >> ma'am? >> yes. >> your time is up. >> i appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> hi. my name is ken chu. i live in the area. i just had a couple of concerns. my no. 1 concern is the value that the land is being sold at. i mean $19 million for that plot of land seems very, very low.

and i'm hearing like parcel f was $165 million and this whole 40% affordable housing from the developer is really just subsidized by the city and if the city sold at the actual marketplace they could pocket that $100 million plus and spend it to build significant amount more affordable housing. so if that is the goal, then to me, that seems like a much more optimal plan for the city. and there has always been options of these blocks as well, and i'm wondering why there hasn't been an option for this block as well? because arguably it's the most valuable block out of all of the parcels, because it's closest to the waterfront. the other issue i have is just around the park shadows. so this is just one building. this area is going to be developed a lot more. and once this whole area is

filled up, rincon park, transbay park, all these other parks in the area are going to have significant amount more shade yos. so yes, it might be a small percentage today, but it's going add up and soon our parks won't be very friendly to be in. my third point is the spot zoning and what is to say that block 20 2 won't get xenoned zioned zoned up? thank you >> thank you. >> my name is lee robins and i'm a member of several organizers and

professor of organizational management in theory i come before you as a citizen and voter to speak about a couple of things that are more about the dynamics and the macro aspect of it, than the details. no. 1 i wanted to live -- we moved to los angeles when i was a teenager. i wanted to live in san francisco ever since i graduated college and i was kept on the east coast until 2 1 years or so ago. i lived in new york for a couple of summers and decided that i did not want to live many , many manhattan. in manhattan. in dynamic terms i want to comment on what i see as some of the nonsense of

the arguments. and my speculation that it arises out of people who know what the conclusion is supposed to be and then you look for arguments that support it. so to read a couple of things in response to community concerns the context of surrounding buildings has changed significantly. and a 400' block building on block 1 blends in with recent development and of course it does as a result of decisions like the decision being urged now and it will continue. it reminds me of the analogy of the theory that we have too much traffic and what we need to do is build another highway and probably most of you are familiar when that movement went on, more businesses and more people moved in and more cars on the highways and soon the new highway was just as crowded. in the same way back in the 1970s, the ceos of corporations tended to have salaries about 20 times

that of workers. it's now 300 times. i don't know if you know how those are set, but they are typically set by compensation committees, who make the decisions about what is reasonable by guess what? by looking at what other ceos get. so i would have liked to have seen a plan looking at 200' rather than 300'. due to the pressures, that is not what has been done. and finally, just in terms of what strikes me again as nonsense, response to community concerns, we're not doing a variation. we're going to amend the whole thing. that doesn't make it better. it makes it worse. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is lauren post i'm vice-chair of your transbay citizens advisory committee

and also president of the board of directors of the greater rincon hill community benefit district, block 1 is located in our cbd, as well as in the project area. i'm here to speak to you as a resident who lives three blocks away from block 1 who will be looking out at it every day from the windows in my home and i'm thrilled to see this building and actually wouldn't mind it was higher. it is more complimentary to the skyline as josé campos' presentation made clear and would i like to commend ocii staff for their thorough analysis of how block 1 will enhance and contributing to the skyline and affects of shadowing. regarding the shadowing i listened carefully to that presentation at our california state citizens advisory committee meeting last week and again today and feel that comments on the negative impact of shadows from the additional height.

i find it remarkable that the concessions that the developer is making in the project have come to pass. i commend again the negotiating team for tishman spire and the city for getting us 40% affordability component. it sets the bar high for the city, for getting affordable housing sprinkled throughout. again, a new standard has been set. finally something that we have discussed in our cac meetings as something that we're concerned with was hoa dues and amenities in a project and not just block

1, but several of the buildings going up in the transbay redevelopment area are going to have affordable and market-rate units as you know. the question of affordable hoa dues so our below market rate neighbors can stay in these beautiful projects has come up as a concern? what the developer and ocii are proposings a model of hoa associations and dues, so that all of the residents in block 1 can enjoy all the lovely amenities could serve as a model for other buildings in san francisco. i urge you to adopt the amendment, to take your staff's advice and to do what i feel is in best interest not just of my neighborhood in transbay, but what i feel is in best interest of san francisco to have this beautiful buildings built at 400'. thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is mary wallace.

i'm a citizen of san francisco for the past three years. it seems like all of this presented assessed of the building at 400' should still be available at the 300' height. i don't know why the 35% affordable housing -- why isn't that percentage higher? there are already so many luxury condos in the city, that aren't even occupied most time. they are just places people keep when they visit here once in a while. and they are crowding out actual housing for residents. so it should be 80% of the development actually. i mean, i don't know that 40% should be that celebrated? and this presentation, it seems to use other people's pointed this out, but it's using all of the current and currently approved building heights as a precedent to make this building taller.

but actually, that will just by extension make the future buildings look at this one and say why can't it be taller? i mean, it's right on the waterfront and what does "flood-resistant" really mean? that doesn't sound very safe. there has been very elaborate maps down to prove that the residents of rincon hill have a calls to arms against this, as much as i can seen, except with one exception recently. there is using this map to prove these people who object must be mistaken, but actually, we know statistics can tell you whatever you want them to tell you. and the development doesn't step-down to the waterfront as required, and the increased height limit will cast more shadows and more long-lasting shadows and it's without a doubt. is there a good, current study? has anybody looked into increasing public transit?

it sounds like there is no reason to make the building taller, but make more affordable housing in the 300' height, which is already too high as has been pointed out by another citizen. thank you very much. >> thank you >> cannot following people make their way to the right. sonya transit, robert devlin. cam chou >> carmen, and willie chu. >> my name is jerry dodson, a resident of the neighborhood and i would like the commissioners not to add 100' to this tower. it will be serious negative consequences in our neighborhood. first of all, it would shade five different parks of open space in san francisco. as the previous speaker said, it would shade. now when the staff was

presenting, talking about percentages, the fact it would shade all the way to the bay. the staff never released the shadow study. we asked for it and they d never did it, but they agreed this is what it should look like. here are the two examples that we have, over here is 400'. you can see the shades all way to the bay and it varis from day-to-day, and season of the year. that is a huge shadow over the park. at 300' it still shadows, but just clips the edge. so really this is what we're talking about, the percentage were never released and we couldn't check it -- this is what it would look like: also the building is out of character

foyt for the neighborhood, almost all are 300' with the exception of infinity and lumina. now this is the subject property. now almost all of the buildings here that were in two blocks of the water are less than 300', marked in yellow. this is the infinity portion, which is more. the neighborhood is really very much 300' and down and this really would be an eyesore. here is what it would look like: white drawing. this is the building. this is a 426' building and you can see out it stands out,

really an eyesore with strange architecture and not friendly to our neighborhood and i ask you not to do that. now even at 300', it still is high, but it does have -- it does blend in more with the neighborhood. so this is plenty, 300'. we don't need it. our neighbors would be overwhelmed by traffic. we're being overwhelmed and making it dark and windy and it's already windy and as a neighborhood, please do not do that to our neighborhood. please leave at 300', what the zoning called for. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is peter hartman and i'm the chairman of the citizens advisory committee and i'm an area resident myself. last week the committee considered the amendment and voted to

approve it on a 7-1 vote with one abstention. some of the concerns that were raised were the short period of time for consideration of the eir. the amended eir. and maybe even a concern was raised about the 400' being very similar to the other buildings right across the street, and having a bench effect, but ultimately the committee itself overwhelmingly felt that particularly given the 73 extra units in the current housing crisis that we have was more important. this does -- the increase, the extra 100' provides for 73 extra units. 60% of which will be affordable. and that i think will provide housing for an extra 73 households

that will keep them from going somewhere else in san francisco and displacing another existing 73 units somewhere else, households somewhere else in the city. we also felt the environmental concerns, and urban design concerns had been adequately addressed by staff, providing the step-up from the waterfront, and the sculpted affected along the skyline. we think the staff has done a great job in providing for maximum amount of public benefits for this, and i know going back, i have been on the committee for a very long time. so long i can't remember when i joined, but i know we worked on the original plan. there was very little down there at that time, we felt that the heights even 300' were kind of pushing the envelope. but now as the staff explained, there has been a tremendous amount

of change in the neighborhood, and this building fits in with the changes and the changes that will happen. i would like to finish and say that we think that this is a very -- and the enhanced height will improve the really great addition to the san francisco skyline. thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. thanks. my name is sonya, and i founded sf bay renters federation, because i realized that shortage is a renters' issue and it's absolutely appropriate that san francisco go up. if we're going to have capacity to holds all of the people that need to live here, we definitely have to go up and i think it's worth take all the opportunities that we

can to increase that. it's a really building. i enjoyed -- i was looking forward to finding out why not? right? why does it hurt to add ten storis? it benefits the city by adding units and by adding subsidized units and benefits the city by a difference of $2-3 million a year in property taxes which is a small amount of the overall budget, but $100 million hires ten eviction defense lawyers, to put in perspective. the concern i heard mostly is shadow, but i don't really buy it, because if you were a person who was concerned with maximizing the amount of public space that has a lot of sunshine, you wouldn't necessarily oppose a height increase, but what you would do is demand a completely public park at the top of the new building. which is something that we

would love that. wouldn't that be amazing? it's way less invasive than losing ten whole stories. so people that truly wanted more public sunshine would have asked for that, but they didn't, you know? so i'm not sure i buy it as a concern. the neat thing about the 40%, oh, my goodness i loved the comment before is about 30 extra subsidized units worth block views from the infinity? put that way, i think it's the clearest way to know this is absolutely worth doing. yes, 30 subsidized units for working people in san francisco is without a doubt 100% worth knocking a couple hundred thousand value. is a chance to comfort the afflicted and also the neat thing about this project, not only

unprecedented unlike mission rock or 5m it doesn't have a commercial aspect. the 40%, this will be an economically integrated building forever, the people living in them will be on the condo association. you know, so forever they are going to have quite a lot of control of what the condo fees are and they are going to have to work together with rich people this. is on the economic integration that we want. thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. my name is carmen. i am in the process of buying one of these units at 4th and mission. so i'm the person, people like me are the people who will be moving in this new unit. i'm a project engineer working in the transbay terminal, that is going to be the biggest rooftop park in the whole world. so you will have plenty of parks to go. i come in the night-time and

produce several shows. i love san francisco. there is no way i could live here if not for a program like this. i can tell you how frustrating it is, that the handful of people that is 44 families that can't move there because there may or may not be shadows. we're talking about shadows? it's the only way people like me can live here. i'm making this city alive. thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. my name is robert devlin, sales associate for polaris pacific and i work at 400 mission. i have one of the best jobs ever. i get to give keys to people like carmen and to cam, who will be speaking next. i have two letters, if i have time to read them both, i will.

the first one is from a buyer itran purchasing a unit at mission this is her letter. to whom it may concern, i am unable to attend the hearing today, but would like to voice my support for the new building proposed by tishman spire. as i have been told the build willing designate 40% of its units as bmr. this is a huge opportunity for current san francisco residents, like myself to purchase a home and remain living in this wonderful city. i work in education, and i love my job. my salary is decent, but a total joke compared to what my engineer friends are taking home. but there is value and substance in what i do. there are many people like me in san francisco. volunteer on weekends and

listen to npr and give back to our community and bay our bills on time and have good credit. what we don't have unfortunately is a six-figure salary, or lump sum inheritance. so we cannot ever hope to buy a place and become a permanent resident. while i don't mind renting, i constantly hear news of landlords raising rents, evicting renters, et cetera. and this will eventually mean that i will be priced out of the community that i lovingly and proudly call home. a lot of people attribute the exponential increase in rent prices to engineers, and foreign investors, which is accurate. but parts of the issue also stem from san francisco's severely inadequate supply of real estate. allowing the construction of this new building alleviates the supply problem, and will help the middle-class remain in san

francisco. especially since 40% of the units will be designated as bmr. when assessing this project please consider the positive outcome this will have on current san francisco residents. thank you, itran, bmr owner at 1400 mission. the second letter is from stephany ebbling and she write issues first came to san francisco in 1991 as a visiting student at uc berkeley and of course, fell in love with the city. i moved here permanently in 1998 and become a citizen in 2011. my entire professional life has been in education. first as a college teacher, then since 2001 at uc berkeley as a student advisor and program manager. and i'm deeply committed to my work as a educator. a salary in public education makes it impossible even to consider homeownership in the current

real estate market. without the bmr program, i never would be able to be a homeowner. please keep this program alive, and support this project. thank you. >> thank you. >> can [speaker not understood] >> good afternoon, my name is cam chou and i came from cambodia and living in the tenderloin for 30 years and worked at the mail yard for 27 years. thank you for the projects and now i'm an owner of 1400 and mission street and thank you, mayor, and staff and everybody here. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissionersing. my name is mitchell,

director of affordable housing alliance and we actually operate san francisco's oldest tenant rights pact, continually operating since that time. an issue that we felt strongly about years and years and today is that this is true for all city dwellers, but particularly renters that access to public parks is important, because renters tend to live in multi-unit buildings with smaller and smaller units. an issue that we got involved with a think in 1982 was proposition k the sunshine ordinance and worked with supervisor ma to pass that ordinance at the time. voters have spoken and said they don't want shadows on public parks and that time we didn't anticipate the earthquake and removal of the freeway and construction of rincon park.

rincon park and not only the construction of the park, but the fact that basically through a quirk, rincon park and increasing number of parks around the city don't fall under proposition k, not because they are not parks because, but their ownership is different than what was anticipated back in 1982. the only reason we're here having a conversation from 300' to 400' is because the port owns rincon park. otherwise, we wouldn't be having this same conversation at this point in time. we believe that it's important to there are to be a quality of life for renters in san francisco; that we can't just build, baby, build, like houston did to the point that we may solve our affordable housing problems in san francisco by building soviet style block housing and shadowing all available park land around it. but that really wouldn't -- that would solve the problem because when we decrease the demand, because people wouldn't want to live here anymore.

but that is not way we want to government we have a long record of aggressive fighting for both renters' rights and affordable housing, but in this case we don't think the modest increase of affordability is worth the shadowing that will occur in rincon park, a park used by all city residents. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is eymani davis and i have the pleasure of working with tishman spire last summer and specifically with the project block 1. increasing the height for block 1 project from 300' to 400' allows many other san francisco familis to stay in san francisco and have the opportunity to stay in san francisco. as a former youth commissioner of district 10 who worked under malia cohen and served on the

housing environment and structural committee me and my committee have ran into issues of affordable housing, specifically with concern and families. it's been an ongoing issue facing san francisco for quite a while now. tishman spire's project block 1 had many efforts in addressing the issue and combining it the best way they could with providing affordable housing units in san francisco. the increase in households will allow more familis to stay in san francisco and it's important that we don't limit that opportunity for families in san francisco, because of some of the selfish needs of others. i have listened to a lot of people who oppose the increase and it seems as though the very things such as being stuck, i guess n traffic and not being able to look outside of their window to a pretty view all seem to be very selfish reasons on why the city can't increase the building -- i mean why the

buildings shouldn't be increased. as a person who lived? san francisco her whole life and faced the possibility that we may be priced out. it's important that these opportunities continue to stay open and that san francisco set an example that we want to have these people who are lower-income to be in san francisco. because right now it doesn't really seem with the decrease in the building -- we want to continue to increase the diversity of san francisco, both across racial and socioeconomic lines and honestly, it would be a disservice to have the building at 300' rather than 400'. tishman spire has done a great job and below market rate units. with that being said, i want to say

it's the selfless act to do and we shouldn't be concerned with the shadows, because they have no affect at all and the shadows shouldn't be a reason to begin with. overall the issue regarding shadows is really selfish and i believe that san francisco families deserve to stay here and we deserve to provide them with as many opportunities as we could. we owe them that much. thank you. >> thank you. tom fogel, firefighter in san francisco and local 798 representing the members that work at fire station 35, which is immediately adjacent to rincon park on the embarcadero. located at pier 22.5. we know this project will cast a minor shadow on fire station 35. we also don't have any

objection to the shadow. actually, we know that as a result of the increased height, this project will deliver many more permanently affordable housing units than available in the area. as someone priced out of the san francisco housing market many, many years ago, i'm very aware that the housing prices in san francisco need to be kept at a level where people who actually live in san francisco can stay in san francisco. this project is an excellent way to provide housing for the firefighters, so that unlike me, they will be able to stay in san francisco. this is a fantastic project, local 798 feels that this project deserves the support of this commission. thank you very much for hearing me. >> thank you.

>> my name is victor and i do appreciate the affordable housing in the city, the increase of the number. but i have to look at this project from more micro point of view, rather than macro point of view. i live at infinity and a represent all of the homeowners who live in the northwest of the infinity building no. 1, which is 301 main street. the benefits that were presented to the community by staff seem to be zero if you look at the difference between the 300' and 400'. i don't see the difference. one thing i would say that some of the objection to the 400' will go away, if the building will

not be towards the bay, but it will be just the same footprint, but the opposite way. while the building is away from the bay, the whole issue of shading, the whole issue of the concern of the looks, and the extrusion of the building that looks like a sore thumb, when you refer to the presentation of the gentleman that choose the skyline, which is absolutely right. the skyline which the building facing this way is just like a sore thumb and not conforming with the 200' and 300' buildings around that subject building. if you turn it around, i think it will make more sense. so the building will be away from the infinity and away from the bay, and that way it will present less of a problem that was presented here by the objectors. other than that, i think

that the building looks great. and and the fact there is approval of this process without the variance seems to be just taking a shortcut that is inappropriate in this substantial case. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> are there any others who would like to speak on this item? ms. wilson, do you want to go ahead? >> since you are up there anyway. >> chair rosales, comparisons, director bohee, i'm monica wilson and here to support transbay block 1. i have been working with

tishman speyer on their spe commitments and starting with professional services and most recently, they developed an amazing trainee program, which i think will be a model for future projects coming before you. what i can say their consistency to the commitment of the lb community has been spot-on since day 1 and grassroots outreach that was done, the commitment and the participation by senior lbes, lbes that have been in san francisco and have their roots in san francisco for years. i did a quick analysis and we have a handful of lbes that have delivered 100 years' of commitment to san francisco, averaging 15 years. i wanted to share that with you that was incorporated into the lbe plan:they did achieve not only 50% requirement, they exceeded it.

but also the role, the sheer number of lbes participating as a percent is more than 50. so again, a huge win to the lbe community. staff forwards that what i mentioned as a training program in the spe program and trainee program and get into construction and workforce. the trainee program was something that tishman speyer embraced immediately when we are really just talking about professional services. we just brainstormed what it would be and it was probably the most remarkable summer i have had as a senior -- not as a senior citizen, but someone practicing community and economical development work for 20 years. what they delivered for san francisco was an internship program that they designed and implemented, which allowed me to monitor and track

and share with you what they did provide in terms of economic impacts. 8 internship positions and partnered with two community-based partners. one which i am the program director of and another program through the san francisco unified school district, 100% of students were students of color and 90% went to high school in san francisco and 75% going to school in greater bay area. these are first-generation college students, almost exclusively. what we did was delivered and tishman delivered i should say first and foremost the transbay block 1 experience and the team included six firms. tishman and turner, design professionals. i will wrap it up to say that four of the six team members were lbes, san francisco lbes and the design professionals that embraced the young

adults and it was remarkable. we had a full tishman speyer days and members were there that walked us through everything. it was such a powerful experience. like i said, i have been doing economic and community development grassroots in san francisco for 26 years. it was a joy to work with them and can't wait to work with them. i just wanted to say it's a very innovative team and i look forward to seeing them commence on transbay block 1. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is john galinger and following this project closely the past year, over the last three, four years i have been a leader in the waterfront movement and there are so many parallels in terms

of retic you are hearing and deceptiveness from the developer and reaction from the public when the real information gets out. i have full faith that the commission is doing treas its job. it's going to the board of supervisors and to address no. 1, barely mentioned in the presentation, never mentioned by developer's folks or in their community concerns outreach is that 35% affordable housing is required by state law on this site. 35%. so to the comment that this is a selfless act by developer, 5% affordable housing is not a precedent-setting extraction from a developer in this town. we had more than that certainly in the end in the giant's project and many more. and 5% is not something that crow about. so i hope you will make sure that is clear, so the public understands what this is and what it's not and b, demand more,

because you can certainly get better than that, if that is way you want government no. 2, there are two buildings, not 1. nowhere above the 26th floor that a person making less than the highest of the high potentially even get to go. why not, if you are going to add units rather than rewrite the laws as the voters in the washington context and otherwise said overwhelmingly is not the way to deal with properties especially near waterfronts and rather than rezone the site. why not have the developer build extra floor in the so-called podium buildings? why not add floors and mix it with upper-income units.

because they have lobbied successfully and pulled the wool over some. i think you should at least explore that before you move it forward and i certainly hope that the board of supervisors will, if you don't. that there is another building that could be added floors to rather than the drastic step of rewriting the law. slide 12 talked about money. i have never heard this in any presentation from the developer or the commission -- if i heard this for free and i hope you clarify, the developer is getting $19 million parcel of land public land for free under this deal? chairwoman, executive director is that true, that you are giving this developer a $19.2 million estimate fair market value parcel of public land in this time of extreme affordable housing crisis for free? and that is why they are saying in a shameless act they will give

you another 5% affordable units and if that is true, have you done that before elsewhere in the city had? that an incredibly valuable parcel is given to a developer for housing? certainly the board will take a look at it. i hope will you. lastly, i hope the city attorney has weighed in or will today that the chapter of our city law, chapter 29 of the administrative code requires a project that is proposed by a city commission, costs $25 million or more to builds that does and subsidizes at least a million in public money has to be submitted at front-end for fiscal feasibility analysis and signoff from the board of supervisors before the environmental review can be approved by an agency such as yours. so i would love at least for information, so that the commission knows. because i'm sure that the board will bring this up, is this project not subject to the fiscal feasibility ordinance and if so, why? thank you very much.

>> thank you. [ applause ] >> mr. james? >> good evening, commissioners. my name is oscar james. i'm a native resident of bayview hunter's point and a native resident of san francisco, born and raised here. the last gentleman that spoke and i'm in support of this project, but the last person who spoke i would like to find out more information on what he had brought before you guys. if this land that is being given to them? and if so, why our community, our residents from san francisco have more of a priority and more opportunities to buy more property in these participate

particular buildings and should be available to san francisco residents. and being that they are getting $19 million free land, that opportunity should be extended to lower income, for some of those suites or whatever they are taking about having. i would like for you to look into that. if the city is giving something, residents need more of an assurance for opportunities to buy and live in this particular project. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i have no more speaker cards. >> thank you. well, thank you everyone for your comments. i thank each commissioner. certainly i did listen very carefully to what you all had to say. it's now in the hands of the commission. do we have any commissioner who would like to kickoff any questions of staff? okay.

i have a question. as folks are gathering their thoughts and i have one. i think one of the comments that kind of stuck with me is why aren't all of these bennis, if you will, not available at the 300'-level? >> hi, i'm going to ask our housing division staff to come up and do that comparison for you. >> tiffany bohee executive

director, on slide 7, as you recall commissioners in fall of 2014 you authorized exclusive negotiating agreement for two projects, one at 300' and one at 400' and due to the stakeholder engagement, direct feedback from stakeholders and others, we have substantially enhanced the public benefits, since you authorized the exclusive negotiating agreement. if you recall, at that time, at the 300' and 400' project, 35% affordability and certainly when you increase the denominator you get more affordable units. at that time, the affordable units were proposed to be located on the bottom floors of the tower. the tower is wholly subsidized by the developer, which is an affiliate with tishman speyer and the

podium requires subsidy with mixed income blocks. you have seen blocks 100% affordable and some that have mixed income like the mercy project, 6 and 7, block 9, et cetera. so the benefits are provided for in the 300' building, but what you are geting and since that time of the ena, the units are now dispersed throughout the project, which is different than the terms of any ena and staff has provided, as i said, a draft agreed upon term sheet that is attached and available for the general public. we have looked again at hoa structure, because it's a very important issue. the amis are priced starting at 80% ami to 100% ami. that was in the 300' scenario. when we looked again, since that time, the 400' scenario, there is

still an income need and prepared form for the mayor's office of housing and seeing the need above 60% ami to 200% ami. you have seen that implemented on the blocks, on the state-owned blocks which transferred through your office, that we get from caltranss and tjpa a mix of 20%, 27%, to the point that we looked at 35%. so if the staff wants to add additional comment? >> well, of the 44 new affordable units, 30 of them will be available to households earning 100% of ami, just what tiffany bohee spoke to. >> 120%. >> yes and 30% of the units

available at 100% of ami. it's been said before, it's 60%. i just want to clarify, i think, some commenter spoke to the 35% requirement. again, that is across the transbay redevelopment project area. it is not for individual projects. >> one other thing i wanted to clarify is the materials have been on our website since thursday. and if anyone wants to see those, and also the presentation from today, they will be up. thursday we posted the videos and the materials. >> housing, do you want to add anything to the difference between the 300 and 400? >> i guess my question, why can they not be -- the comment was why aren't these benefits offered at the 300'? i mean is that a developer question? >> yes, i would like to call up carl shannon. i think he could explain that best.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> the 300' building is the required zoning and that zoning requires the podium build to be 100% affordable and for the tower to be 15% affordable. we have reached beyond that for the 400' tower to provide these additional benefits, and remember, math is done different ways in different parts of the city. when you compare this thing to 5m and the giants, where they are doing 40% off-site this. is on-site. so it's really 60% of the market-rate units. the number of bmrs is equal to 60%

-- it's important in order to make this overall economic package work to have enough market-rate units to make the overall project economically viable. so it is our preference and i think the preference of the ocii staff to see this come forward with 400' tower and the additional affordable units. it if that is not possible either here or at the board of supervisors, we would go forward with the 300' tower. >> thank you. commissioners want to continue with questions? >> i have a comment. i want to make a couple of comments. one, this was first brought to us as a native san franciscan, my fear was the manhattanization of san francisco and it's still a concern of mine. because what makes our city

so unique and so lovely, that it's not spread out like l.a. and not crazy like new york. it's san francisco. so that is something that i will always be on the lookout for, and make sure that we are mindful of that. with regards to this project , what really concerns me is the level of elitism from some of the speakers. because what i hear is that i don't want this to cover my view. and that 40% is not enough, and 5% does not make a difference. as someone who has seen people who i grew up with, pushed out of my city, and people who made this city so attractive, that many of you want to come here were pushed out,

that 5% is a lot. i would love to see those people come back to the city that they helped to build and make attractive for many people now. so i'm offended by some of those comments, and i don't think it's right. i think we got to dot do the right thing and being mindful our city's skyline and a lot of questions we have asked about the project and also understanding unless you are siting at that park 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there is going to be shadians darkness, because that is how the world turns. so let's be careful about how we talk about things, or better yet, let's be mindful how we think about things? let's be mindful there was a city here that for the most part a lot of people didn't live here

before. and some of the buildings that are there now blocked the view. some of the buildings there now created shadow for some people. so i just say let's be very careful that this is a city, an incredible city, and that we are having issues of diversity, not only in terms of just race, but economy. that we need to do things to make sure that we have that diversity, to keep this city alive and vibrant. so madame chair, i just want to say that, because i think it's important that i needed to say to clear my conscious when i vote in support of this. >> commissioner, before i turn to commissioner pimentel, do you have a question that would you like to ask straf at this staff at this

time? >> no, i'm done. >> commissioner pimentel. >> i want to thank carmen, i believe that was her name, who came and spoke and gave the perspective of a working-class person. i can only imagine some of those working-class people, who will be residents in this unit were unable to afford to take off work today to give public comment and i think they need to be viewed as people, not spots in a development. day after day, i see my son's classmates leaving the city, moving to portland, seattle, new orleans, because they can't afford to live in san francisco where i live my view is my neighbor's gate and dilapidated fence and ambulances going by daily, but it doesn't matter. what matters is we have a home and what is more important, views or people? these are human beings that want to stay here and that work in an industry that helps many people here today. and they are important.

and those 30-40 families, put yourself in their spots. they are trying to stay here and afford [hao-efrplt/] here and they are important and add value to the developments, so people can hear their stories, understanding the struggles of working-class people in san francisco. and see what their -- what san francisco is through their lens of life and these units can make a difference in their lifes. they are able to stay here, native san franciscans have the ability to have a key to a home in san francisco. i think it's very important for them to have a chance to stay here. and i also would like to highlight, i was very proud to see the parking aspect. there was such a variety whether car sharing or biking, et cetera. work class families often have cars to pick up their children and groceries and it's very important to

have many options available to them. going off of miguel's comments, people are important, and they deserve a right to stay in san francisco. >> thank you. commissioner singh. >> i just have a couple of questions. first i have one regarding the $19 million. everybody has said that it was a high price to give the land for $19 million. >> that is the estimated value of the land. and so that is what they were going to pay at closing. then we were going pay $275,000 subsidy for each unit, which is $20.9 million. so they are going to build those units without a subsidy from us. and that will result in $1.7

million savings to ocii. so the land is not being sold for free. it cannot be sold for free under state law. the board of supervisors has to make a determination it's not being sold for less than fair market value. >> i actually like this affordability has increased from 156 units, and added 44 units with 100'. that i like. thank you. >> thank you. so i have a couple of questions, additional questions and one of them is another point that stuck with me, because as i say, i drive through transbay often. more properly said i avoid

driving through transbay often. tell me about traffic impacts? i know it was studied in the eir. one of my pet peeves it seems like projects are going up at every third corner of san francisco, and there is no rhyme or reason to it, as though nobody is talking to anybody. so i wonder what authority we have, given transbay is under our jurisdiction to either elicit support from the developers that we deal with, their general contractors, when they are building to talk about some sort of comprehensive tract mitigation or coordination plan? because i do think the traffic impacts are construction-related. at least we have been assured it's not a forever conversation. i mean, i'm assuming these traffic impacts are going to minimize at some point? is that something that we as a commission can say something about?

>> i would like to call up shane hart, the project manager. >> good afternoon, chair rosales. my name is shane hart, project manager for transbay. regarding traffic impact as josé mentioned earlier there was a traffic study completed for the original transbay eir. because of the unit count that was analyzed in the redevelopment eir, the impacts are much less with this project than what was previously anticipated. as far as i think you are getting down to just the practical aspects. this was an issue that was brought up at the infinity town hall meetings. a lot of residents are concerned about the traffic. they are concerned about the noise. and what we want do is work with the

city and the developer, especially as it relates to the noise, as far as making sure all of the hotlines that people can call to make sure that these noise problems are taken care of. we're going to work extensively with them to make that happen. we can also talk to the city about what you are talking about, as it relates to temporary traffic problems that are caused by construction. so we can look into that and see what we can do to help mitigate that. i also know that city planning is looking at an overall streets plan for the entire transbay/rincon area and looking at traffic. and those studis are supposed to be coming out here any time. so that is another situation where we'll be able to look at those studies and determine how we can help? >> okay. yes, i think we should do

that. >> yes. >> i can also call up planning department. >> thank you, good afternoon, commissioners. i have prepared the addendum to the eir for the proposed height increase and project modification. the way we analyze traffic in the 2004 transbay eir was to look at the potential square footage and dwelling unit increase as a result of the redevelopment plan? and those then correspond to a certain number of vehicle miles traveled added to the transbay area. on this side, the total number of dwelling units, even with the 400' version of the currently proposed project, does not exceed the number

of dwelling units or the square footage of retail space that was anticipated for the site and analyze in the 2004 eir. therefore, the project would not create more traffic than was previously analyzed. as far as existing conditions, the existing conditions were studied for traffic in 2004. as well as modeled for year 2025 cumulative scenario. so that would be the impacts of this project, plus all of the other development in the pipeline. that analyses showed that traffic would worsen over time and this project along with the other redevelopment projects would contributing traffic and cause congestion to worsen, but for the reasons that i just described, since the project does not have more dwelling units or more square feet than what was assumed in the 2004 analysis, the traffic contribution from this project would not

be any greater than was previously studied. even with the additional 100' increase. >> okay. >> thank you. >> commissioner singh? >> yes. i didn't understand that parking 1:1, what is that? >> thank you for asking that. that is something that i need to clarify. so the parking ratio in the tower will be 1:1. 1 housing units, 1 parking space. >> so everybody will get parking? >> in the tower, yes. in the podium it's 1:4. that is typical. that is our policy in other transbay blocks. >> okay, thank you. >> you are welcome. >> okay, so i have a question on shadow. since we have heard a lot about shadow, two speakers put up nice

drawings and said twice those drawings were shown to our staff and that our staff agreed that the depiction of shadow was accurate. i need to check. are those accurate statements? >> i need to call up josé campos: >> thank you, chairperson rosales. in fact, just on view, you have seen the video and in your packet the analysis that has a page by page rendition of the largest shadow impact on rincon park in the worst-case scenario. so when we met with some of the speakers today, who showed us the exact same diagrams that you saw just now, we agreed that just on the surface, without doing an actual technical analysis, it matched similar worst-case scenarios that we presented in the shadow

study and the video shown today. >> another question, i know you are not an attorney, but there was another statement made if this were property owned by the parks and rec commission under prop k, the shadow or the impact would be deemed illegal? i don't think it's a per se legal test, but contravene the requirements of prop k? >> right. my understanding is in certain parts of the city, when prop k was actually voted in, there was a list of parks that are under the jurisdiction of the recreation and park department mainly downtown and chinatown, for example and there was a shadow budget established for each these parks. it basically allowed development to happen, and shadow up to a certain point. once that shadow budget is exceeded in the prop k parks, or when a proposal would actually exceed that budget, it would require an

amendment of the shadow budget that only happens through a joint hearing of the planning commission and the rec and parks commission. and so that happens in certain parks on that list. and as the speaker mentioned today, it's not the case in rincon park, because rincon park doesn't have a shadow budget. however, as i mentioned in my presentation, we did follow the methodologies of probk and section 295 of the planning code and in particular, what i described as the theoretically available annual sunlight and how to actually measure what sort of impact a development or increase in height would have on potential shadows or on open space with an increase in shadows? so the methodology that we used and the numbers that you see are the same. it's just that what i described earlier as the shadow budget, don't apply, because they don't exist in the south of market area

that we studied. >> okay. thank you. >> commissioner singh. >> i want to revisit the context of mr. lee -- [speaker not understood] i want to know what sbe, wbe and lbe. >> contract compliance specialist, good afternoon commissioners and director bohee, to-date, working with the developer, we have done the outreach as we typically do. we'll bring to you the full team when they come forward for schematic approval, but currently achieving sbe credit to 80% and wbe and mbe are both significantly good and we have good diversity. so we look forward to bringing the full team at

schematic. working with the developer, they have made good-faith effort to actually on this project studio gang is a woman-owned business out of chicago. they are not economically disadvantaged, but we have two local associate architects working closely with studio gang and that would be perry architects, and barcelona james. so we're really excited about the opportunity for barcelona to be working collaboratively to focus on the podiums and tower and hopefully perry, but all collaborating together, along with the other diverse consultants. >> thank you. >> any other questions or comments? >> i want to move that. >> commissioner singh has moved the two items, 5b and c. let's take them one at a

time. 5b moved by commissioner singh. >> second. >> seconded by commissioner pimentel. before we take the vote, i just want to mention that you have at least 3 native san franciscans on this board. and you have heard from two of them and i'm not going repeat what they said, but i completely agree, frankly, with what they have said. i was born and raised in the mission and bernal heights. the views are great, you know? , from bernal, not from my house necessarily. but i can travel to see the views anywhere, because this town, i feel, belongs to me and everything about it belongs to me. in this particular area of san francisco i think it's critical that we have a i did diverse neighborhood and since i'm a mother of two kids who want to have them live in their hometown, we have to build

housing for the middle-class in a very exciting area of my hometown. on balance, i'm supporting the motion, and i hope the commission does approve these two items. so it's been moved by commissioner singh and seconded by commission pimentel, please call the vote. >> commission members please announce your vote when i call your name. commissioner pimentel. >> yes. >> commission mondejar is absent. commissioner singh. >> yes. >> commissioner bustos? >> yes. >> madame chair rosales? >> yes. >> madame chair, i have four ayes, and one absent. >> okay. item 5b passes. would he like the same motion and call? >> yes. >> commissioner singh on 5c is moving, commissioner pimentel is seconding. please call the roll. >> commission members please announce your vote when i call your name.

commissioner pimentel? >> yes. >> commissioner mondejar is absent. commissioner singh. >> yes. >> commissioner bustos? >> yes. >> madame chair rosales? >> yes. >> madame chair, i have four ayes and one absent. >> item 5c also is approved. thank you everyone. we'll wait a little bit while the room vacates.

thank you. can you please call the next item? >> the next order of business is 5d, approving amendments to the open space and streetscape master plan and streetscape and open space schematic design plan for phase 1 of the hunter's point shipyard and adopting environmental findings pursuant to the california environment quality act. hunter's point shipyard redevelopment project area discussion and action, resolution no. 3-2016.

madame director. >> welcome again to the members of the public and thank you for continuing to join us. commissioners, as you know, the hunter's point shipyard candlestick project are covered by two ancillary documents to support them and implementation on hunter's point shipyard and candlestick back in '07. you approved open space with former redevelopment agency, commission approved an open space and streetscape plan. certainly since that time there was another dda approved for shipyard and candlestick and refinements and before you today is an updated open space and streetscape master plan, to really reflect the reaality of what has been already approved and being built today. lila hussan the project manager for the team will present this

item. >> thank you, director bohee a commissioners. good afternoon and thank you for hearing this item today. i will go through the amendments, director bohee already get a great introduction between phase 1 and phase 2 development. and i wanted to go over the major amendments. that we are covering today, the first one is three separate elements that we'll be adding to the open space in replacing one of the elements that we'll go through in this presentation, the galvez steps will be removed and we're adding the overlook, the promenade and store house plaza. we also have minor changes to the streetscape plan in terms of path of travel, as well as plantings and tree replacements that we have updated since 2007 after working

with the department of public works, the bureau of urban forestry. so some of those updates will also be contained later in the presentation. lastly the third item is the removal of the s-curve which sounds very weird, but it's actually a street that looks like an s, that was originally in the 2007 plan. and in 2010, when the phase 2 project was adopted, city staff, oc ii and the developer looked at the configuration of the street and proposed an alternative that we'll describe in greater detail. here is a quick visual overview outlined in pink of the presentation is phase 1. what is commonly referred to as hill top and hillside are the phase 1 developments. the surrounding area is phase 2 development. and i'm just going move quickly to the next context slide.

and again, just to orient everyone. this is kind of a zoomed-in block-level detail of hilltop and hillside that also shows there is amazing views both at hilltop and hillside that look all over the bay and also provide opportunities for the open space to also provide advantageous views as well. the slide highlights the galvez overlook, the promenade that is a new feature added to the open space, as well as the store house plaza. and another context slide to give a sense about the circulation that exists today for phase 1 development. you have in it a major and

bus corridor that hits donahue gateways, of which many of these improvements/amendments to the plan will be focused on. with that i would like to introduce the next speaker, frankie from lenoir. later on in the presentation, we'll also invite jennifer ing from cmg who worked on the designs. >> thank you very much commissioners for giving us the time. we'll be brief. the slide that you have in front of you kind of illustrates the main areas that we're going to be -- that is affected and updated and enhanced per the newest

design. on the left side we have kind of a footprint area of where the galvez steps once was. and now to be replaced with the galvez overlook. i'm be working my way to the right. it's referred to as the colman prom demand promenade and enhanced that as well to the store house plaza at colman and galvez. the store house is a modular building currently used for community meetings and also for affordable leasing services provided there. the galvez steps we'll be discussing in future slides.

this slide reflects the path of travel here at the hilltop, in the area that we're currently discussing. as discussed pointing out the galvez overlook and store house plaza and why the importance of the collman promenade was required for enhancements. [ inaudible ]

to create the pathway between the development enhancements. we felt there was a couple of issues with the galvez steps besides it's initial purpose of connecting the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill to the international african market with the retaining walls that would have to be retained over the years and a lot of tree and landscaping enhancements that we're being proposed after further discussion and look and analyses, it was

deemed fairly expensive to maintain. and not really tie into the official use of what was it was originally designed for. it shows a couple of vantage viewpoints atop the galvez overlook. looking down to the downtown area, you can kind of see some of the vertical decline that is happening on that hillside. and on the right side, we see kind of looking over to where the store house is and that parking lot there as well, how that area will soon function as commercial kitchen and artist parcel will be. again looking up towards the side, the left side is the path

where is now considered the coleman promenade is the area that will take place and on the right, looking from the double-up, you can tell the vertical difference and now cmg will discuss the enhanced design. thank you. >> hello. i'm jennifer ing from cm. cmg and i have a little bit of a cold and i will focus on speaking clearly to you, but if i don't, let me know to

help create more texture and color and warmth and the other thing we wanted to do was create a delightful experience, something charming and elegant that had a nice presence to it. so when you walked up coleman street you had a place to stop and rest and look at views and to embrace the historical con texting of the shipyard. how we decided to do that was take the concrete and wood ballasts to be more usable. this is an enlarged plan that shows

what the galvez overlook could look like. there are three major seating areas. one to the far left and one in the middle has ada companion seating and one to the far right. there is a range of seating options backless seating, backed seating and we tried to orient the seat in different angles to capture all of those views will see the beginning of the coleman promenade and the concrete ballast that i called out earlier is now used as a seating element. the concrete ballasts are used as a way to create a rhythm down the street and to provide a chance to meander and enjoy the character of the site. we have tried to increase the pedestrian experience by

adding flowering trees and plants. block 55 is in the background. there is also, let's see part of that is working with the marketing team to figure out what the right signage should be and where it should be located? moving down coleman promenade, the major design issues that we saw immediately was that it was labeled as public open space, but had very minimal landscape improvements and, in fact, what you see there is the improvements. so not very much. there is a real missed opportunity

with the store house in terms of what is going on inside? and in connecting to that interior program. there is also a missed opportunity with connecting to phase 2. on the right side of the image in the far background, you can see a building where the phase 2 developments are. we could really create a strong design dialogue with that, and create a stronger connection. also, across the street, on the second image where hilltop park meets coleman street and to create a real strong threshold between store house and what the park is saying. coming off of the site observations we have a couple of design objectives: the first is to enhance the inside/outside connection. so whatever is happening inside the store house, you should also be able to do that outside. so go get your coffee and snack and have a good time and come out to the wood

deck to enjoy the outside, almost like a little backyard. we have a custom concrete lounge/bench that we think would be a great a tracter of attracter and to be a great terminus to the coleman promenade experience with trees on each side and ballast that you want to end in something equally enjoyable. on the enlargement plan the yellow dots, that is the location of the bay view horn sculpt yours and also trying to provide a nice venue to enjoy the art, view the art and also see it as an entry piece to all the

other art pieces on hill point park as well. this is a view of what it would look like. a small space, but trying to be dynamic with materials and to be as warm and welcoming as we possibly can be. the temporary bus stop is to the right side and also the entry to the hill point park. the 2007 design had a very narrow sidewalk and then a very narrow sort of path of travel and a very wide continuous garden planting strip. now this continuous garden planting strip was a great idea in theory, but it was very difficult to coordinate

the utilities and the driveways and the street lights and the parking. and then all of a sudden our continuous planting strip is very chopped up planting strip. so when cmg was asked to review the design, in terms of how well it complies with better streets plan initiative, that was set forth by the planning department? and to think about what the overall pedestrian experience could be? so first we expanded the sidewalk as best we could and created a furnishing zone, so all of those can land themselves on the sidewalk in a very organized way and outside of that path of travel. so that when you are walking down the street, you don't see all of those utilities. they just fade into the background. the other thing we did, we worked with the bureau of urban forestry to think about what the tree selection would be and revised the

tree palate a little bit in terms of what was going to provide the least amount of maintenance and the highest durable plantings? and then we thought about it in terms of what the san francisco approved streets were and whatever trees lend themselves to the area, san francisco approves of that. so here is another view of what that streetscape could look like and then an enlargement plan of what the streets are. at this [#30-eu7b9/]ly turn it back to frankie, to talk about the s-curve. >> we're at the final amendment, part of the suite of amendments here. this is the s-curve that i spoke to earlier. if you look at the next slide

, where what you have on your left-hand side in red is the 1997 plan of the original street alignment. you had ennis going down and following somewhat what we call the s-curve and hitting donahue street. when phase 2 was being studied and a lot of discussion between city agencies mta in particular relooked at this intersection and felt for transit operations, if it was possible to remove this scientific s-street and regularize it in a t-intersection would be better for transit operations. in order to accomplish this, the street was widened innes to actually handle the amount of vehicles that were planned both for phase 1 and

phase 2 as eventually phase 2 will get developed. and the vehicular traffic would increase substantially. what you have that was cleared in the environmental impact report for the phase 2 is the removal of the scientific s-curve and new intersection. so that is the final amendment that is part of phase 1 open scape amendment and to highlight the community process. i believe claudia provided a letter from the cac chair dr. honeycutt in support of these amendments. we did go before the planning development and finance subcommittee earlier in the year and to the full cac in july of last year. and jennifer spoke to some of the ways that their design has already responded to some of the comments that we receive, which is to add more color to the seating. originally it was all concrete and we

add the warmth of wood on the concrete ballast and also to add, when you are sitting at galvez overlook, for folks who are sitting there to understand what they are looking at and also to understand the history that used to be from front of them, that will no longer be theres on phase 2 is built-out. so that signage is something had a we what that we need to work on and bring back to the cac to review to and to respond to the meandering ways to add to the character of coleman promenade. as far as maintenance, once lenoir is constructing these if approved, the maintenance will be part community facilities district and funds from the source will be

responsible for maintaining the open space elements. when we relooked at 2007, going back to the galvez steps the cost of maintenance was significantly higher than what we anticipate for the coleman promenade, as well as the galvez overlook and the opportunity to be next to the modular building has the opportunity for that tenant to be able to do a certain amount of basic maintenance and the rest being -- coming from the cfd. so we do have to look at long-term maintenance of our open space and be able to make sure that we have funding moving forward. so that these new developments can actually be maintained throughout the life of the project. thank you. >> thank you. >> we're available for questions >> okay. i think first we need to take public comment. >> i do have two speaker

cards. one from mr. clyde miller and mr. oscar james. [ inaudible ] >> okay. mr. james. >> thank you. oscar james, native resident of bayview-hunters point. i was living on navy road when i was born. so this is a particular heartwarming project for me. i really like what is taking place, but i have a problem with two things. one with the trees. i would like for those trees coming into the shipyard to be palm trees like they have in dolores park and around the embarcadero. i would also like the trees to be around the housing to be trees that

don't drop leaves during the winter. and also, when they plant those trees, put those pipes down with the holes in it, where they have been watered the roots don't stay up on top under the bottom of the concrete sidewalks, where they expand and start breaking the sidewalks. put them in, like you would in the rich areas. put them where you have the proper drainage, so people don't come out and stumble over those sidewalks on that. i really like what they are doing. i really love those benches. and any other benches that they put in that area, put some wood on there. because we don't like siting on concrete. we don't like hemorrhoids. thank you very much. [laughter ]

[laughter ] >> that is the only speaker card i have. >> okay. ez questions or comments? commissioner pimentel? >> are you working with artists from the 9142? >> there is no public art that is part of the overlook. there are a lot of art pieces on hilltop park. this is not part of the program, but there is more wayside signage for the views. there will be opportunities as part of the phase 2 project to bring in historical commemorative signage and we'll be coming back to the commission for the hunter's point shipyard signage master plan, which we'll talk about some of

these more commemorative -- i'm having a hard time saying that word -- for the items for the greater shipyard to cover the larger area. >> commissioner bustos? >> i have a couple of questions. one, i think oscar james brings up an important point about the trees. palm trees attract rats, so i don't know about all of that. but in terms of just making sure that the trees don't break up the sidewalk, and i think having proper drainage is going to be key for long-term investment, which i'm sure you guys are already aware of, but wanted to rereiterate that. >> the city is requiring minimum clearances between utilities and street tree plantings to avoid some of the sort of uprooting that you see in more infill or historic

neighborhoods, that didn't have enough space to actually do that. there is also other treatments such as root barriers where the tree is planted in kind of a partial bucket, a barrier. some of these are under review with the city to make sure that we have enough clearance between the utilities. the palm tree comment has come up in public comment for innes street. what has come up in community meetings is palm trees along innes which will be discussed when we come back for the hunter's point shipyard streetscape plan. where we'll be talking about what the innes corridor looks like and as far as the comment about leaves falling down.

these trees are deciduous and during the 2007 period there were a lot of comments about wanting to see foliage and seeing the seasons change. i have worked along the promenade where we have similar desire from community residents to see the changing of seasons and colors and lot of these trees are deciduous and we'll have maintenance staff to make sure it much resembles like the mission bay streetscape looks like, where you won't see a lot of -- >> are we coordinating with because there is going to be public property; right? are we coordinating with the parks and rec department on some of this stuff? >> for the open space? right now, for phase 1, this is oti property and as part of the property

management plan it will go to the department of real estate. the management wouldn't necessarily end up parks and rec and could be different configurations much like yerba buena. we have consulted with the bureau of urban forestry, as well as the department of public works, who is the permitting entity for a lot of these improvements. so there has been city agency review. >> okay. i just bring that up, because i think we may want to figure out how to coordinate better with them. commissioner pimentel brought up a great community about the art. i remember back in redevelopment days when i was a commissioner on redevelopment, we did a lot -- we had a lot of conversations about this area, and about the art. and so we said we wanted local artists. so please, please, please, please make sure that is reflected and maybe we need to go back to some

of the drawings. because we actually had some pretty good renderings of what we are looking at and the type of art. maybe we can dig those up and share that with you? the last thing i just wanted to mention is the storefront, i remember during the redevelopment days, and oscar james, you may remember this, but we talked about having that storefront almost as a museum for the ohlone people . that was a huge point of discussion looking at the whole plan, and we said we need to do something that honored the ohlone -- do you remember that? >> yes. >> we talked about wanting to do something to honor the ohlone peoples and some of the art reflects

the community's art and i hope we haven't gone away from that. that was one of the many reasons why we wanted to support the project. >> i wanted to provide the commission on an update to the public art project. these are the nine pieces of art that ocii commissioned with federal grant dollars. it did include a piece that does honor the ohlone people. a canoe installed at the park and all nine pieces have been completed and installed, the bayview horn is one of those pieces as well. which is in the store house plaza. >> so going back to the store house. again, i remember when we looked