necessarily through golden community garden. we have it right in the middle of >> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco planning commission regular hearing for january 11, 2018. happy new year, commissioners. and welcome back from your winter break. i will remind members of the public that the commission does nottal rate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. please silence your mobil devices that may sound off during these proceedings. and when speaking before the commission, do state your name for the record. aye -- i'd like to take roll at this time. [roll call]

commissioners, first on your agenda is consideration of items proposed for continuance. items 1a, b and c for case numbers 2015-15854drm, var, 528th street. staff initiates a discretionary review. discretionary review and variance are proposed to continuance for february 22, 2018. item two, case number 2015-018225drp at 171 justin avenue is proposed for continuance to march 1, 2018. items 3, a and b for p.c.u. and c.u.a. for formula retail grocery store and fulton street grocery store, especially youth district at 555 fulton street. planning code amendment and conditional use authorization ares proposed for continuance until march 15, 2018. i have no other itemses ed for

continue -- continuance and no speaker cards. >> thank you. any items proposed for continuance? seeing none, we'll close public comment. commissioner fong. >> move to continue. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion to continue, items 1 through 3 as proposed. commissioner fong? >> aye. [roll call] so move, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. and if i could have the acting zoning administrator continue item 1c. >> right. continue item 1c to the date specified. >> thanks. commissioner, that will place us under your consent calendar and all matters listed here under constituted consent calendar considered to be routine. by the planning commission and may be acted upon by a single role call vote of the commission. there will be no separate

discussion of this item also in member of the commission, the public or staff so requests. in which the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered a separate item at this or a future hearing. item four, case number 2017-00506cua at 245 valencia street, conditional use authorization. i have no speaker cards. >> i have no public comment on item four. commissioner moore? >> move to approve. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion to approve item four, under your consent calendar -- [roll call] >> so move, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. and places us under commission matters. item five, minutes of december 27, 2017. >> any public comment on the draft minutes? we'll close public comment.

commissioners? commissioner richards? >> move to approve. >> second. >> on that motion to adopt the minutes for december 7, 2017 -- [roll call] >> so move, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 6-0 and places us on item six for commission comments and questions. >> commissioner richards? >> so, many of you have seen hopefully the article in the sunday "chronicle" not buried anywhere, but on the front page, about illegally razing homes, demolishing homes without a permit. the article talked about two homes, 49 hopkins, which i believe the zoning administrator after the fact approved the demo of and the one we approved the demo of which the board ended up upholding although it was on apaoe. i watched the appeal

hearing and supervisor peskin called it a teachable moment. really saying he was going to take some action and try to stop this nonsense and basically it is nonsense where people feel with impunity they can do whatever they want with the building. and i keep coming back and saying the rest of us peons out here have to get twisted backwards through a knot hole sometimes when we deal with d.b.i. and i think it is about time. i think this commission on the 11th or the 14th of december put it down saying that we're not going to approve an after the fact demolition, tantamount to demolition. it needs to gook to the process that exists with the building departments. i expect to see more articles by j.k. on this because i talked to him and he said this is a big story here and it is about time that it gets told. second issue, it was in monday's paper, it talks about restaurants that opened and

closed during the year. again on the front maciej. -- on the front page. and we reach out, morphing and changing. we need to become an experience. you have amazon as a competition. now amazon is opening up stores, but they become more concept stores and kind of show rooms for augmenting their ordering online. perhaps restaurants and bars are the saviour here and we actually have an item on our agenda today in jackson square on the number of restaurants and bars that should be there. the article goes on to say is the number of restaurants last year actually shrunk by 7% because of competition, because of costs and because of delivery services and all that. so, reached all across the gambit, including food and beverage, is changing. and i think one of the items that i hope that we do work on this year is retail as it works to restaurants and bars as well as what we consider traditional

retail as well as the other items like parking. and lastly, we all showed up here and in our commission packets, we got a nice little kind of comic book, how burrowing owls lead to vomiting anarchists. san francisco's housing crisis explained by someone i have a high amount of represent for. it looks like it will be interesting. thank you out there, if you are watching, for this book. >> thank you. commission kerr moore. >> happy new year. i have a procedural question for you. when this commission, perhaps two years ago, less than two years ago, approved a project and spent a lot of time sending it back and it came back and was finally approved, and we then understand that the project has been sold and it's trying to bring back what exactly does a developer, the

new developer have to do in order for this project to adhere to the [inaudible] worked out conditions that we have developed here, including the amount of detailed work your staff has put into it. >> so commissioner, when a project -- after you approve a project and they come in to start the permit process, there is a decision that's made by the zoning administrator as to whether the project is in conformance with what the commission aproved. he bases that decision on both the zoning aspects as well as the specifics of your motion of approval. the more detailed your motion is, then the developer has to conform to that. obviously there are tweaks made to every project after it leaves you and a certain amount of flexibility is acceptable. but there is a decision that has to be made about how far it

deviates from your approval and that is a decision that he makes often in consultation with me. sometimes we bring it back. sometimes we believe it is in conformance. >> but the subject could not increase in height or add 30 units -- >> no. no. >> or shrink units from 20 to 10 or something like that. >> that is correct. the general rule of thumb is that it can increase no more than 5% or decrease more than 10%. that is the rule of thumb. >> thank you for that explanation. >> commissioner johnson. >> thank you. just wanted to make a quick announcement because in the last hearing before tend of the year, i publicly resigned. and just wanted to say for the record that the mayor's death was sad and tragic and also complicated a number of things so i have been asked to stay on

for a couple more meetings. hopefully i will not be here in your hair for too long, but i will be here for the next meeting or two. >> thanks. >> if there is nothing further, commissioners, we can move on to department matters. item seven, director's announcements. >> good afternoon, commissioners. again, happy new year. i have no new announcements. we will be getting organized for the new year and i'm sure we'll have more announcements in the coming weeks. thanks. >> item eight, the board of supervise source and board of appeals. there was no historic preservation commission hearing yesterday. >> commissioners, aaron starr, manager of legislative affairs. happy new year. at the land use this week t committee heard two commission sponsored ordinances. the first amendss the planning dozed revise the definition of gross floor area by deleting references to accessory buildings, exempting required car share spaces, removing redundant off street parking

provision and modifying provisions regarding accessory and nonaccessory parking. the second ordinance amends the planning code to correct errors. this commission heard both ordinances on september 7 of last year. and voted unanimously to approve. at the land use hearing there was no public comment and no comment from the supervise source. after staff finished the presentation, the committee voted to recommend the item to the full board. next on the agenda was an ordinance that would amend the c.t. controls. these amendments were part of the legislative items developed through the math 2020 process. they heard this item october 19 of last year and voted to recommend approval. staff's presentation provided a detailed discussion of each of the amendments which included limiting lot mergers, making nonretail professional services not permitted, allowing arts activities and catering in the mission street n.c.t. public comment was brief and

after public committee, the committee refered the item to the full board with a positive recommendation. the committee also heard -- i'm sorry, also considered supervisor ronan's 15-month interim zoning controls for the mission which require conditional use authorization for restaurant uses and for commercial store front mergers resulting in a nonresidential use of 2,000 square feet or larger. supervisor peskin commented that similar controls were added to north beach a few years back and had proven successful. after which they made a motion to send the item to the full board with a positive recommendation. next was an ordinance to amend the western shore area of the plan to the general plan. the amendment to the plan would add >> randene: octoberive to preserve, enhance and restore the ocean beach shoreline while protecting public access, scenic quality, natural resources, critical public infrastructure and existing development from coastal hazards. this commission heard the item on october 5 last year and voted to approve the proposed ordinance. the meeting raised concerns

about the final parking locations identified in the ocean beach master plan. supervisor tang noted that the additional community outreach will occur before any projects are finalized. other comments were supportive of the overall managed retreat strategy for south of ocean beach. supervise sort tang and p/esskin shared appreciation for the extensive outreach involved in the amounts. no supervisors had questions about the ordinance, though. the committee then devoted to forward the item to the full board as a committee report. finally the committee considered interim controls proposed for commercial areas. they would require conditional use authorization for all institutional use located on the first story. certain categories of institutional use located on any story and a personal service use operating the salon or providing cosmetic service located on the first story. it would also require conditional use authorization for any commercial use to

residential use. there is no public comment on this item and no substantive questions from the committee members. the committee forwarded this to the full board with a positive recommendation. at the full board hearing this week, the supervisors unanimously up healthed the appeal of the categorical exemption for 2417 green street. the proposed project located in pacific heights involved a horizontal rear edition of a single family residences as well as excavation to accommodate an expanlded garage. it is located adjacent to a category a historic resource. in upholding the appeal, the board found that additional environmental analysis is required to address two main issues. a potential impact on the adjacent historic resource and whether the project properly complied with the maher ordinance. in addition, several non-ceqa were done.

a determination was found and no substantial evidence was found to support a fair argument of a significant impact to the adjacent historic resource. upholding the appeal means that the building permits for this project were thus revoked. therefore, the discretionary review hearing for this project scheduled for february 8 of this year will not be held. the appeal for the environmental determination for 401 main street was continued to february 27. and the general plan amendment for the western shoreland area plan [inaudible] [coughing] for restaurants and store front mergers in the mission was adopted. and that concludes my report. >> thank you, mr. starr. any questions? >> the board of appeals did meet last night and considered one item that i'm sure will be of interest to the commission. at the property for 1709 broderick street, the full

house house. the board voted to revoke the permit on the grounds that the permit was not properly noticed through the block book notification process. which means the matter may be back before the commission at some future date, depending upon the scope of work the permit holder chooses to pursue. if there are no question, commissioners, we can move on to general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission, except agenda items. with respect to agenda item, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. each member of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes. i have no speaker cards. >> is there any general public comment? seeing none we'll close general public comment. >> very good. that places us under your regular calendar for item nine.

at 181 free monlts street. this is an informational presentation on the public art requirement. >> good afternoon, president and members of the planning commission. nick foster, planning department staff. happy new year to each of you. the information before you is the public art installation that is required as part of the previously required mixed use development project at 181 free monlts street. on december 6, 2012, the office approved downtown project authorization to allow construction of a 52-story building and reach a height of approximately 800 feet, containing approximately 400,000 square feet of office use, 74 dwelling units. the project also includes a pedestrian bridge to the elevated city park situated atop our soon-to-be opening transbay transit centre. purchase saounlts to planning code sections 429, the project sponsor is required to provide public art, which is a component valued at the amount

equal to 1% of the hard construction costs of the project. the project sponsor has elected to satisfy this requirement through the on-site option with artwork placed in three locations at the project site. one with the new ground floor lobby, two within a seventh floor lobby and three with an exterior terrace connected to the future city park via a pedestrian bridge. the general placement of the art work is to function as a means of supporting intuitive way finding from the building entrance along the freemonts street footage via a public economy accessible elevator. the art work within the ground floor lobby is positioned to be highly visible and accessible from both the freemont street footage between the subject property and adjacent property at 199 freemont street. the pedestrian bridge is to be highly visible as well. the seventh floor lobby is

envisioned to include a eating and drinking retail use, further activating the space. the project sponsor has purposely kolo indicated the artwork within the areas that are also satisfying the privately owned of public open space for the project. the spronlts required to provide 8300 square feet of open space that is open to the public. the seventh floor lobby adjacent terrace and pedestrian bridge area, areas of circulation, public restroom purchase saounlts to code sections 138. they include a spanish-born artist, an american-born artist and also chris truman. the project is currently under construction and it is nearing completion with the art installation and lobby build-out remaining. the artwork and installation are valued at approximately $1.6 million, which equals approximately 1.2% of the total construction costs, thereby satisfying section code 429.

today's staff is simply seeking comments from the planning commission that will lead to the general concept and proposed location of art at 181 freemont street. as such, there is no formal action required. that concludes my presentation. of course, i'm available for any questions you may have and the project sponsor is here. >> all right. we'll hear from the project sponsor first. >> thank you. jeffery hiller from hiller-minnis architects should you have any questions for the project sponsor. we're pleased to be here with us today this artwork programme works, as you heard, both with plans that the department wanted to see in terms of public access and with the spirit of public continuity. i'll go fairly quickly because of time.

but the first diagram shows where the artwork is at the ground floor. there is a verbal scrim piece by the front door, the lower right there. and from there, you approach a major bust by plenza that keeps you ton path to the you believe elevator. the you believe elevator is entirely public elevator dedicated. doesn't serve any other purpose in the building. as you approach the building on freemont street, there is this scrim artwork by plesa, which is verbal, by the way. the khoils of that had to do with relating to the work by robert haas on site before in the poetry garden. there is a verbal connection between old art and prior art.

so you come in and it is present to you, as you come in floating down and in english, it's by -- it is an homage to william blake, a very famous poet and artist of his time. in the late 1700s. and then as you move away from the entry, you can see the relationship to the front door and the transparency of this lobby. the glass is 25 feet high, floor to ceiling. i think you'll be very pleased when you see it. it's very open and transparent. you approach the plensa bust, which is significant in scale on your way to the public elevator. let me jump outside for a second just to show the tie-in there. so, you see the front entry in

the scrim work and the poetry by robert haas as the public can walk through. the linkage between this and town hall is quite great, i think, and very, very open. so, all of this will be flowing through. you can actually get a sent of it even today. back to the big rock on the right there and looking back to fremont street. so, the art is ever present in this area. there is a door on the side that is accessible to the public during the day so you can go right in from this public way in and it keys you to the major sculpture and right behind that in the background there, there's the popo sign and public elevator on the right. you go up that elevator to the -- what we call now the seventh level, which is the level that links to the park and there is two other artworks up here. one outside on the deck and one inside in the space.

the relationship to the park is like this. and mostly constructed. so, there is a very wonderful relationship of park-to-building. very, very public and a great public flow. the flincher benetton work is right there, on the outside. a little hard to read on the screen here. as you come inside, then, you get the work by chris truman -- sorry, right there. and then just to summarize in the packet for you is words about plensa and the work and fletcher benton who's quite famous in the bay area, as i think you know and, again, chris truman, a wonderful art piece. i think it is going to be very, very public, very transparent. i think we're lucky that we have the relationship with 199 and i know jay paul folks worked very hard to make that

relationship. and what's cool is the 199 folks were very encouraging about keeping that openness, which we were not sure of in the beginning. that is it. thank you very much. happy to answer questions. >> thank you. any public comment on this item? seeing none, we'll close public comment. any commissioner comments or questions? commissioner moore. >> we sure would like to have queen fountain of millennium park. that is one of the most stunning pieces of mr. plensa's work, but having this one where it is is equally fabulous. i'm excited to see that prominent of a piece come here, together with the way it is locate and then transitions up to the garden which we have all been asking questions about for many, many years. thank you very much. >> any other comments? thank you, mr. hiller. >> thank you. >> commissioners, that will place us on item 10 for the urban design guidelines. informational presentation.

[coughing] >> here. do you want to run your copy? >> yeah. >> thanks. >> hello, commissioners.

i have a small planning department staff and we're returning today, the urban design guidelines team, david winslow and myself, will be giving you an update about the urban design guidelines. they with respect here last may, in may of to 17 and we've been doing quite a bit of work since then. i'm going to give a little bit of background, just to get people up to speed who aren't familiar with the project and remind everyone what we've been doing and what the intention of the project is. design guidelines in general are implementation documents for city-designed policies and objectives. they partner with planning code to shape new development. they consistent of general principles of design excellence and neighbourhood compatibility to improve the way new projects will look and work. this specifically t san francisco urban design guidelines are intended to do three primary things. to reinforce the general plans urban design elements and as it turns out we have guidelines

under the commerce and industry elements also and existing policies, goals and guidelines. so, all the guidelines we have right now, there are about 30-plus guidelines in the city are not affected by this project. those all remain or are in the same neighbourhood they are right now. and it's really a sort of pulls together from the general plan, the urban design element, the commerce and industry element. these essential practices, essential policies and puts them into an implementation guide. so, it is a way of using and implementing that policy. it helps unpack and explain those principles by showing means and examples. it's also intended to promote design excellence. of course, we want beautiful architecture in san francisco. it's internationally known for its amazing urban fabric. we want projects to come in and droibl that, but also compatibility with context, which is a fundamental principle to the urban design element. it is in all of our documents. we want beautiful architecture and great projects and we want them to in its their

neighbourhoods and contribute to the beautiful fabric that we already have. the urban design element talks about how architecture should be compatible and things that stick out and things that are distinguished should be held for civic purposes. a lot of residential projects really need to be a contributor. and then the third is review design process for everyone by creating a common language. through this process, we want to really set the values and set the bar on what we expect projects to perform. we want projects to come in, already knowing what they're trying to achieve and then the conversation can be around certain kinds of issues. the planning commission, planning staff, design review staff, project sponsor, community groups, members of the public, that's all of us together. so, some of the things that the urban design guidelines will not do, and they're not intended to do, are to change

the general plan. to change the urban design element. to change zoning or codes. to add height. to change parking. change allowable uses. so it won't affect any of that. it's also not going to change any of the existing applicability for all the other guidelines that are out there. it's not intended to make everything look the same. we're not frying to make downtown projects look like neighbourhood commercial projects and vice versa. it's much more about local and specific context and we're not specifying an architectural style or form. these are not form-based codes or form-based guidelines. the urban design guidelines are intended to apply in the mixed use districts, neighbourhood commercial and downtown commercial districts. as you can see on this, the orange is where the urban design guidelines would apply. the purple is where the

r-districts, the rm, rh and r.t.o. designing is and that is where the residential design guidelines apply. they all stay as it is. there are some instances we're proposing that the urban design guidelines would support projects in the residential districts where the r.d.g.s would also apply and would supersfaoeds there was any conflict between them. we certainly hope there aren't conflicts. i'll be explaining that later in the presentation to unpack that a little bit further. and this is meant for everyone to use. this is meant for us to have a common dialogue, of course for the planning commission, planning staff, community groups, members of the public, project sponsors and architects and variety of designers that twork on projects. it is really for all of us and it is why we're going through this process and making sure that people are collaborate rating and contributing as we develop this document. the urban design guidelines have three sections -- site design, architecture and public realm, the three aspects that

contribute to the built environment. there are a few critical built environment values that they tend to support and this is from our existing policy. the number one, of course, is being compatible with context and we have a glossary in the documents that's meant to explain what we mean. compatibility is a large glossary that delves into that in more detail. so, three examples in site design, architecture and public realm. harmonizing the relationships between building streets and open spaces, modulating buildings vertically and horizontally and that modulation is in terms of the context. looking at the surrounding lots and buildings and making sure that buildings that are coming in are responding to that and locating and designing open spaces to maximize physical comfort and visual access. enhancing unique neighbourhoods. rather than thinking of this as

something that makes things look the same across the city, it is intended to do the opposite. it is intended to tell projects to look to their immediate block face, the face across from where they are, and within the immediate block context to understand how they can respond and enhance those local variation. so, at the site level, recognizing the unique conditionser often this is when we have multiple, unusual streets coming together or unusual site sizes. we want to enhance them, for example, on market street how the triangular corners are held. on broadway or on columbus, how those triangular corners are held. harmonizing building designs with neighbouring scale and material. let's look immediately to what's next door. where we have masonry and what xienlds of materials are used, what are the window patterns and opening patterns in the facade and expressing neighbourhood character and open space design. we expect na a park or plaza in the mission will be different than one in the valley, that will be difference than one on polk street. we understand that there are

specifity in these places and we want the local neighbourhood to be part of the development and design and expression of that design. other guidelines are intended to support the larger systems of the city. for example, responding to urban patterns on this larger scale. within the building itself, does the building itself have an organizing strategy and idea? and then how can we support public transportation, this larger urban system. enhancing the city as a whole, san francisco has its san francisconess. it has its view corridors and digitser ways that we see buildings, often from above because of the three dimensionalty of our city and, of course, how do we simply add our new open spaces to connect to our public realm and enhance it. making great, walkable neighbourhoods. this is a key characteristic of the city we have right now. how can we support that? defining the street wall. making sure that is something that pedestrians know where the

edges are and have priority. making beautiful facades that are interesting to look at. making you want to walk down the street. of course, designing sidewalks to enhance the pedestrian experience, making sure our public realm and buildings work together. enhancing the experience with uses. we want to organize uses to complement the building environment. designing building frontages, we spend a tremendous amount of time in design review talk about the ground floor since it is so fundamental to how we experience our estimate and then programming public open spaces to encourage socio activity, play and rest. and finally one of the fundamental built environment values in the city is supporting sustainability and we have at the architecture site and landscape scale. the best and sustainable practices should be used on all of those scales. these are just a few of the specifics about how the guidelines work.

for example, s8, exhibiting and representing natural systems and features. this is similar to one in the residential design guidelines which talks about topography. making sure the buildings step uphill appropriately. so, you can see the guideline is listed at the top. to the left hand side is a description of why it is important and where it comes from. and then examples that show, that demonstrate the nature of this or positive examples. you'll see in this one, also there is an n.c. mark in the upper left corner. we designated the commercial examples and highlighted those to make sure people understand, you know, how it would work in that smaller context. so and then on the upper portion above the main image on the page, you'll see the means. the means describe how you can achieve the guideline. they are not a complete list of means, they are a collated list that helps dprekt the design conversation. other once may be proposed within a project but we have to make sure that they are equal to or achieving the same intents.

you do not have to meet all of the means. you simply have to meet enough of the means to achieve the guideline. another example, this has been modified since the last time we were here. a3. the example or the diagram on the bottom was added since you last saw the document and that is intended to help explain and how how window patterns may work on a facade so if you are coming in, that you are meeting what we call a solid void ratio and also the proportion of windows, how many, how they're distributed. rendering building facades with texture and dem. you can see three different examples at the bottom. very different stylisitickly with different intentses. they want to get to a thoughtful grain and soft texture on the front of the building. showing a lot of depth.

at the ground floor and also above the ground floor and one example shows the top of a building and being or nate at the top. others show how you can use the primary facades material itself. and it is a more contemporary expression and then something that shows the weight of how the ground floor can be done, something that is very much done at the pedestrian scale. and then this is -- the second half of the ground floor, a8, which looks at active building frontages and this is to describe the diagram on the left is looking at a traditional store front. rather than assuming that someone needs to come in to achieve this guideline, has to achieve something that looks historic or looks like this, it is really to describe the pieces and parts and why they're important so someone can come in with different tellser and different ways of building it. but at the same time, see that the base is important, arctic lating a clear story may be important. breaking down, glazing, making sure you are at human scale proportion.

putting texture into the bulkhead and even having a bulkhead. i had architects ask me what a bulkhead is. so here we are in the process. the first time we came was in the question beginning of 2016. and we had been studying the existing policy and guidelines and that was a fairly in-depth process to make sure we were pulling from. that worked with an advisory group which was to make sure that the guidelines were practical, that we had some really good perspectives, some professional perspective from our colleagues, architects and designers and developers and a number of neighbourhood groups involved but it was a more limited set of involvement from the public. but we wanted to make sure that it was making sent. we then broadened that out reach significantly after that draft and actually around the time that that draft came out and hosted working session and attended over 20 neighbourhood meetings, went to anyone and everywhere we could to help them explain and get the word out. came back with the draft in

march of 2017. we've continued community conversations and refinements. came to you in may 11 of 2017. since may of last year, we are continuing to have those conversation. they're a little more focused. the feedback we got in may was particularly helpful. we had a lot of conversations specific to that. we also refined the draft. a number of other elements, which i'll show a little bit later. we're introducing the special area design guidelines and my colleague will explain that in a little bit and we've come back in november with the draft and continuing to do public meetings. we just had a couple recently and we're proposing an adoption date in march, depending on how much we can complete and the feedback today. just an overview of the out reach that we have done. we have a document online, the

urban design guide's website, which is a matrix. with every comment that we've received and all of our response. the coalition for san francisco neighbourhoods sent us a letter at the end of september which, unfortunately, inadvertently didn't include in the response. but there is detailed response to that letter that is now available. we participated in over 20 community neighbourhood meetings and six public workshops and back for our fourth informational and three drafts for full public review. this is a list of the neighbourhood groups that we've been meeting with so far. in some cases, more than once. what has happened since last may, just to dive in a little more specifically. there's been a clarification of some definition. the conversation has been very useful. we added additional graphics, stepping down with topography, for example, the shape of

glazing, the amount of glazing. we have added light wells in as well so matching light wells is a part of that. we explained that further. and tried to show how street frontage, what is important about that and imagery. showing context around the images to make sure it's clear, that the project is responding to something and what they're responding to. we wanted to also explain a little bit about how the urban design guidelines can support them in specific circumstances. we don't see these very often, but we do -- this would be very, very helpful to have the e.d.g.s support the r.d.g.s. and this specific example, as this diagram shows, you might have an r.h. district where the residential guidelines apply, and the n.c. district where the urban guidelines apply. but you might have a residential district adjacent to both of them and is a much larger site. so t proposal is that the urban

design guidelines would also apply in these instances, for nonresidential uses -- schools and churches and thing like that -- or for where you have a frontage that is longer than 150 feet or more than six units. if you look at this example, in this case you have a street pattern that's changed, off larger site and in any case which the r.d.g.s had a conflict, which of course we've been trying to avoid in general, the guidelines would supersede any issues. just to explain this a little bit further. residential design guidelines are really articulate for single family residences or small scale family residences. they look at topography and undersite design. they look at setbacks, front setbacks, spacing. and they talk about the typical san francisco lot, 25 by 100 feet. how that lays out.

mid block open space and the importance of contributing to these patterns. explains the patterns. and in some cases enhancements at special building locations. it does not necessarily get to some of these larger scales of how do you make a block where there is no block. what do you do with the street if there's street stops. if there's unusual patterns of streets. what is important about how the new project that comes in. so, what we're hoping is the u.d.g. simply provide an underlay for those things that are missed. we are also proposing that because the residential design guidelines are coming up, we believe as a revision project, that this issue could sunset and that we could then put some of that into the residential design guidelines. we still would want the urban design guidelines to apply for the nonresidential uses but that would be an option to say that they apply in those residential cases until residential design guidelines take up that issue. some of the ways that we can see on the left how some of the u.d.g.s would support those

issues is and we had some questions from the public about, well, this really shouldn't ever happen, that we have these larger residential projects so i can show you these are projects that have come up recently in which we're talking about much bigger scales or very large accumulation of units on residential districts. some of them come in as planned use developments and looking at how all of these things are aggregated. we get to facades and setbacks and small scale issues. how to form mid block open space, not just support an existing one, these are really fundamental. geting to the street patterns, block patterns and common open space where you have a much larger project. you might have a plaza or much bigger open space and the residential design guidelines don't speak to that really at all. the last issue and one of the most significant one was around neighbourhood commercial districts so we have a new project that we hope will support. sa lot what we heard then was

many neighbourhood groups felt that the neighbourhood commercial areas were basically housing with a store at the bottom. so, we were really looking for a way to help support how specificity could get to those areas. i'll hand this over to my colleague. >> good afternoon, president, commissioners. david winslow, staff architect. yeah. much of the comment we heard from our last presentation and our public outreach highlighted the desire for and a focus on the neighbourhood commercial districts that the u.d.g.s were too general and lacked specific details for these neighbourhoods that, as maya mentioned, are essentially residential over a commercial use. [bell ringing] we responded by creating special area design guidelines for a few neighbourhoods that requested this endeavour. we started with -- we started

the special area design guidelines by listening to and walking and working with community members who wanted more localized guidelines. that address specific qualities and values of the north beach broadway -- [bell ringing] and polk and pacific neighbourhood commercial districts. a process that allowed us to see, document and reflect upon some of the unique physical characteristics and values of these neighbourhoods to be maintained and enhanced. the special area design guidelines are derived from turban design guidelines found in the commerce and industry element of the general plan. as well as some of the input that we derived from this community input. they were added to them in some cases for brevity, clarity and usability. although they may not correspond to every single urban design guideline, they were adapted to turban design guideline formatsz and where

they do core late, they do so. some guidelines were added to respond to some of the special conditions that we saw. for example, the polk pacific neighbourhood commercial groups, highly cherish their allies. they had a visioning plan. we included that as a special guideline in their guideline draft. parents of telegraph hill, the flatiron buildings of columbus street were also unique characteristics that we thought were special to be enshrined into their special guidelines. the special area guidelines also include a context statement and that is very important also to derive the values and the qualities that are to be highlighted from the community and they also include special -- not special, but illustrations that capture the image of that district so that easy reference can be made back to the qualities that are specific to that district that we're talking about.

a little -- oops. i jumped ahead. so a little discussion about applicability because there's been a lot of ongoing conversation about applicability. there are places where they overlap and get more specific. there are other issues in the urban design guidelines that may or may not always apply to these districts that the scale. the idea is that when there is a conflict always supersteeds more general guidelines. the more general guidelines being the urban design guidelines. we also received a good deal of input and requests from our outreach to include more preservation-related guidelines and these special area guidelines.

the problem with that is that preservation has a different jurisdictiontal responsibility. they have overlapping districts that extend into other zoning districts, like residential and they have a different process in staff and commission that reviews and approves these. we felt that the two should still be separated. preservation guidelines are very specific, in which case they also generally take precedence over any other guidelines. often times there are overlapping usage of those guidelines. the more specific and preservation guidelines typically take precedence. what this framework allows us to do, though, is replicate these guidelines fairly fast and fairly easily. for interested neighbourhood groups that want to have a process by where they look at, analyze and enshrine some of their values into a special neighbourhood district

guideline and to do so we have adapted a format that enables community groups to come forward and basically replicate the same process that we've embarked on with the polk and pacific and broadway and north beach neighbourhood groups. the idea that we walk, we talk, we derive a context statement, we look at special characteristics, we apply the guidelines that we typically apply and review and draft and go through an interview process until they're adoptable. this con chooseds our presentation and, of course, we're happy to answer any questions. thank you. >> all right. thank you. we'll open this up first for public comment. i have a number of speaker cards. richard frisbee, stan hayes, george wooding, jennifer jones and you are welcome to speak in

any order. just organize things here, you might want to line up against the screen side of the room. but if i have called your name, feel free to come forward. welcome. >> how much time do we have, three minutes? >> three minutes. >> i don't need that. good afternoon, commissioners. i'm richard frisbee from laurel heights. the first comment made had to deal with a letter which we discussed last time. and we did get a reply to our september 25 letter. we got it this week. so for four months we hear nothing and then we have three days to try and absorb the answers and put together a thoughtful response. that really fails the fairness test for most people. we really would have appreciated a chance to come in here with time to get together as a group and to discuss this and that was taken away from us.

and i will use ms. small's comment maybe inadvertently. not intended was used a lot in here. but the fact is these u.s d.g.s have a lot of potentially unintended consequences. the u.d.g.s are, frankly, too vague. they deal with generalities. and they don't really tell you where the controlling elements, where there is a conflict comes into. one comment is if something can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted, especially when money is involved and there is no more money around than developing in san francisco today. so, the language has to be tightn't up. the guidelines have to be brought in line specifickedly where they should apply and say where they do not apply so that we all know where we stand going forward. but rather than try to fix the u.d.g. for everything, we should say where it applies.

it shouldn't apply in our districts, period. there is no reason for it to apply there. we have residential guidelines. if it is not adequate, then fix residential guidelines for our districts. why create an entire new element of the guideline that apply -- that was set out the apply to n.c.d.s downtown and then have it a catch-all for everything else. developers are going to use that to come into our district. u.d.g.s might be called the ultimate developmenter giveaway because they allow -- [laughter] people to misinterpret the rules and to come in the r districts and start applying things such as urban design guidelines. so, easy fix. they do not apply in the r districts. let's fix the residential guidelines where we think they're inadequate. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. welcome back. happy new year. i'm stan hayes, co-chair of planning and zoning for telegraph hill dwellers. there is a point of view of among our members and the board that the entire u.d.g. concept is flawed and should be ended. but we want to participate constructively in the process. we're concerned that it would propose one-size-fits-all guidelines on commercial areas throughout city and we think that is a mistake. we think that area-specific guidelines would be better tailored to match unique facts on the ground and that is why we've engaged with planning to develop special area guidelines for north beach and we want to thank jeff and his team very much for their efforts to work with us. if this concept proves workable, we think it should be extended to other areas of the

city where community want it. we eve offered extensive first round comment on planning's initial draft of the north beach guidelines. we've identified important concerns that we think need to be resolved before we move forward. for example, only 10 of 24u.d.g. guidelines are addressed in the north beach guidelines with the rest defaulting to the generalized city-wide u.d.g. with unclear and we're afraid perhaps unintented consequences. so, while we remain hopeful, we're not there quite yet. we don't know when or if we're going to be successful. though we and everyone i know certainly hopes so. going forward, though the collaborative community-based process that we envisioned and hoped for hasn't happened to the extent we hoped, we continue to support area-specific guidelines that

are true stand-alone documents, the incorporation of historical document compiled by the communityinger more interactive and partnered collaboration with the community during guideline drafting and the outside technical assistance provided to communities where it is needed. until this process plays out and you determine how the u.d.g. are going to interlink, we don't think you are ready to adopt the u.d.g. please support the concept of area-specific guidelineses and a truly collaborative community-based process for developing them. thank you. [bell ringing] >> thank you, mr. hayes. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is george wooding, president of the coalition for

san francisco neighbourhoods. i support the concept of voluntary individual neighbourhood guidelines. the u.d.g.s are not staff's finest hour. the friended guidelines are poorly drafted and so vague that they will allow planning staff to interpret them any way that they choose which goes back to mr. frisbee's comment of the golden rule. the u.d.g.s supersede many of the specific zoning areas and turn them into vague mush. subsequently, these overarching guidelines will diminish the power of the actual planning commission and we also wonder what the default is on areas that we cannot agree with planning what they will want in

their actual own area. so local neighbourhoods should be able to create their own versions for discussion with staff followed by the comprehensive community outreach. u.d.g.s should only be used for neighbourhoods that request them. one size does not fit all and as the 25th letter as was stated earlier, was only recently evaluatesed. and is not in your packet. i don't think this was done possibly inadd verdict tenltzly. -- inadvertently. we are the largest neighbourhood group in the entire city and i feel we have not been treated as equals to single neighbourhood groups in this process. so, in summation, i feel that

this is almost the u.d.g.s are almost something that is not necessary. especially with the r.d.g.s coming. we don't know how that is going to work. we don't know how it is going to fit in. i feel it may almost be unnecessary to have them and i wonder if a hiatus may be necessary for n.c.d. areas and commercial areas. so, thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. wooding. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. happy new year. it is great to be in front of you again. just as a reminder, my name is jennifer jones, i'm the executive director of the american institute of architects, san francisco chapters. and a chapters that represents over 2300 built environment professionals and architects in san francisco and marin counties.