departments from doing that on a trial basis for the last two years. if you like how it works, then adopt it for the petrero. [bell ringing] thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> is the overhead on? >> it can be. >> once you place something down, sfgov tv will go to it. >> ok. thanks. good afternoon. and happy new year. lisa fromer, liberty hill. after two years, it's gratifying to see that the u.d.g. is not the overarching city-wide guideline. and all waivers have been deleted. but it's vague generalities and modern bent still won't guide development that in any way

complements our older residential or historic neighbourhoods. many eastern and downtown districts and other neighbourhoods already have their own very granular-specific guidelines. an appendix in the first version of the u.d.g.s listed 33 of them. the latest draft now applis to the neighbourhood commercial corridors. that's the residential commercial interface that has always been part of the residential fabric. the r.d.g. has the detail and granularity to inform design here and includes historic preservation but not u.d.g. there is nothing in the u.d.g. that speaks to light air privacy. and now there is a little more on light wells. the reason it's up to neighbourhoods to write their own special area guidelines for their n.c.d.s is neither necessary or advisable. worst of all tu.d.g. is being

applied to historic district. our recent request for exemption was turned down. liberty hill, like the other 12 landmark districts, has its own guidelines in article 10 and all the historic districts have the historic preservation guidelines using the secretary of the interior standards. sensitivity and real specifics are required to preserve our historic neighbourhoods. here's an example from the western soma design guidelines. overhead, please. it addresses development around historic and potentially historic buildings to preserve the overall historic character of the neighbourhood. [bell ringing] nothing in the u.d.g. even comes close. that's why historic districts

must be exempt. i can't say that strongly enough. the time tested r.d.g.s, article 10, historic preservation guidelines and existing specific guidelines all work well for our neighbourhoods and historic districts. they address preservation, not modernization. but for areas like petrero that apparently need design guidelines, the u.d.g. is a nice fit. [bell ringing] thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is reesa titlebalm. i remember in 1981 when a small group of people got together to develop a committee to research our neighbourhood and in 1984 i became president of what is now

called the liberty hill historic district. over the last 37 years, i've been a neighbourhood activist and i'ves been very, very strongly working towards preservation as we modernize for this time. we have seen many different plans come and go. i have been in this room many times. and i don't think that there is anything more valuable than people who are living in the neighbourhood who know what's going on. right now, we have valencia street that is called a transit corridor and there is no transit on valencia street. all the buses have been eliminated. in addition, it's very, very important to understand that in our neighbourhood, the

commercial areas are largely residential. and according to a realtor, recently, he is saying that all the residential neighbourhoods are really part of this commercial district. the commercial districts do have to reinvent themselves for the modern reality. [coughing] amazon, google and we can see on valencia street that there are a great number of vacancies. guidelines need to be responsible and responsive to each neighbourhood's identity. in liberty hill, we have a responsibility to preserve our significant architecture and our streetscapes. the u.d.g. should not be applied in our historic district. they simply do not relate to our specific concerns for

preservation as we work towards the future. we hope you'll exempt the historic districts from this plan which really has no specifics and is very vague on the details. [bell ringing] i find that many of the qualities that are mentioned are so subject to interpretation that they cannot be considered. thank you. [please stand by] [please stand by]

and it's a risky proposition. the last quote over time and there's layers that uphold san francisco's unique neighborhoods and support their evolution. i ask you whose to decide just

what appropriate design is and wed like historic districts have the urban design guidelines. >> commissioner: thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. earlier when the department unveiled the first draft of the documented public at large and i told you the issues with the guidelines chief among them was the over arching aspect to apply to san francisco. why? we found the focus was mostly on high-density areas with high

rise buildings. we also found a waiver unacceptable. it was compounded by the fact the guidelines in the document was ambiguous and left a lot of room for interpretation. and it doesn't show the clarity such as the r.d.g. standards and they finally did away with waivers and exceptions months ago. we applaud the staff for making the changes. however, the fact remains the guidelines will still apply to units with six-plus units, the neighborhood commercial districts and above all the historic districts and they were

supposed to exclude and be barred from applying. the department's response has been special area design guidelines. we were initially receptive to this concept then we found out the two special area design guidelines the department had been working with the neighborhoods were suffering from the same problems that we discovered with the urban design guidelines. namely ambiguity and lack of substance. here's my question, why write a set of vague and ambiguous statements to supercede details and when challenged with the soundness of this approach promise more guidelines to come. it looks like re-inventing the wheel. the truth is we have excellent guidelines even for high density eastern neighborhoods.

yes, there are areas that need guidelines like potrero and we don't deny that. so why use these guidelines for the entire city when you can just use it for potrero? why not redesign the urban design guidelines and call it potrero design guidelines and use the city with substantial guidelines to continue with what they have. here's an example of the standards that supports my point. overhead, please. as you can see -- well, out of time. >> commissioner: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, afternoon, commissioners, thank you for opportunity to speak on the

guidelines. that the process were revised it could become shorter and more effective. the absence of the owner and architect during the initial review may greatly delay the process provoking an appeal. no matter how competent a case planner's presentation may, an unexpected question about non conformance with with the guidelines may not be ac -- adequately answered and the explanation may be a welcomed surprise to the reviewers. here's how you can do it. part one, a typical case planner is made in the absence of design architect and owner. he questions whose answers concern non-conformance with the

guidelines are listed for a later discussion during part two when the architect and owner are invited into the discussion. part two. the meeting is then opened to the owner and architect for a face to face limited opportunity to respond to udat's key guideline questions after which they reconvene to the private meeting to formulate the udat report. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm mc mars. i'm an artist, a writer. i live in the 800 block of bush street. i'm here to address something just alluded to earlier by jack edwards representing montgomery partners. he talked about the building

being proposed next door to where we live and that building will effectively remove somebody like me from the city. i wrote a book called don't take me the long ways. i was also the -- i'm one of the people san francisco points to and i'm one of the artists creating the hard work in san francisco and i'm retired and live next door to a building that is about to be re-c re-configured. they're planning a six-story building adjacent to my wall that will prevent me from

writing with the noise level and be a detriment to the neighborhood and destroy the human ecology. to define that term quickly, how people live within the particular. all the subtle aspects of keeping the neighborhood intact. one artist spoke about context. i'm just a concerned citizen that feels suddenly in the crosshairs of the developers and i want you to understand that.

>> i wanted to sum up a consensus of those speaking and it seems to be as follows. u.d.g.s are not ready for prime time and not widely supported. they're viewed as vague and providing an open season on developers doing pretty much what they want. there seems to be support for voluntary neighborhood guidelines using crucibles to start the process such as north beach and middle pollack. however, they should initially be developed by the neighborhoods themselves, presented to staff and then considered with major community input.

what should not happen and what seems to have happened to date is preparation of the initial drafts by the staff with little or no input with very vague guidelines which then default to equally vague universal guidelines. to these ends then, u.d.g. should be taken off calendar indefinitely. pending the results of progress, if any, and developing the neighborhood guidelines which are to date, as far as i know north beach and middle pole -- polk. the universal guidelines are vague and the ones prepared by staff with virtually no input when the neighborhoods offered to do their own first versions and were told no are not

adequate. thanks very much. >> thank you, mr. weber. any additional public comment on this item? seeing none we'll close public comment. >> if i can submit something for sunshine. >> commissioner: thank you. we'll open it up to commissioner comments. any questions? commissioner moore. >> i have a cold so i'll try to speak concisely. we have not looked at the guidelines for quite some time and we've been standing on the sidelines watching the process and communication and interaction and community and have clearly heard today that many of the initiatives which have happened between us have

only partially led to what we have all seen potential. when i last heard about the process was when specific neighborhoods were going to interact with staff and staff drafting and there was a suggestion as basically a road map for what planning would do to integrate them into process by the urban design guidelines. from what i hear today, the process has started apparently with people smiling and walking down the street together. and i don't have a horse in the

race because i am not participating but there seems to be goals and i hear the contrary. it seems people have not found themselves heard or accepted for the specifics of what they're asking. i remember someone saying we had 24 specific points and 10 were answered. i'm not taking sides, i'm repeating what i heard. i acknowledge the creation of guidelines is complicated. i don't believe the document between today and yesterday is simpler. it's been almost two days which is far longer than i like to spend on any commission matter with seven or eight days notice to prepare to read through the

duks and i have sticky notes and i will not even started touching on them exempt i experienced the large disconnect between what certain people call vagueness and policy and over arcing themes from the guidelines we have to how we take them and define our future. i have seen positive points but overall because the document has become so complex i don't see what i personally have expected. the tie into the general plan and design urban development and

the specific guidelines, i do not see this and perhaps it's n organized and the captions i don't understand but i'm at a loss it's not simpler or clearer but it's become more complicated and confusing for me. >> commissioner: commissioner melgar. >> i want to thank the staff for a thorough presentation and to the many folks who came out today to give their feedback and took the time to look over all the stuff and follow the process. i think that's how it's supposed to work and thank you for all

the energy you've put into it. i guess i had more questions than some of this is still fuzzy to me and it sounds like fuzzy to other too. so perhaps if we go through the process and work with community folks and incorporate their feedback it will become clear tore all. but specifically i was looking at the areas that you had specified in terms of greater detail and specific design. paris, flat iron buildings so i'm not sure. how are those areas selected and i'm unclear about how -- >> how were they selected? >> they were select the people who showed up and acted most

interested in our efforts and wanted to have more substantial dialogue with us. >> that worries me a little bit. not everyone is with it. i was looking at your map of where the urban design guidelines will apply and chinatown, 24th street, the third street corridor are all areas that have worked as communities for a while on cultural preservation and signage, murals, physical markers of space and culture and i'm wondering how these relate to that and -- >> let me clarify this because those two are select as the prototype start. we intend to keep going and san francisco is full of

neighborhoods with lots of active people and that will probably reach out to us with modest advertising on our part and we recognize places like chinatown we may have to be more proactive in saying we're here and here to meet the needs of your communities too and provide technical assistance and design guidelines and basically engage them. >> i heard the overall messages we intend to provide clarity and at the same time they were intended to make sure that design supported context so that will include neighborhood context that is different but i want to make sure in the process we acknowledge the disparity and

go out of our way to state it because i know this department has spent a lot of time on map 2020 and the chinatown design and third street to make sure that's acknowledged. thank you. >> commissioner: i want to mention we have a meeting specifically about starting. they would be next in line. they're third in line. we started the conversation and set up site visits already in support of now 2020 and as a special area design guideline. >> just three and four months ago we had a presentation from the chinatown folks and i want to make sure that we state had we're supporting the ongoing efforts. >> and our last public workship -- workship from a member in china and we're going to connect them with the sustainability

district and offer support to that but i know there's been an ongoing project already. >> commissioner: thank you. >> commissioner: commissioner richards. >> there's a lot here i like and a lot of hard work went into this. i think it needs to move forward appropriately now. if we look at the man, everything looks like mission bay and it's bland and you don't know where you're at and everything looks the same. it would apply to what would be pretty much be all the orange which is a significant portion of the map, right. we added most of market stop and around on fisherman's wharf and

added up the commercial districts where there was 40 of them or something like that. we said let's make it bigger, we're doing a good thing and i hear with the thin orange lines out in the neighborhoods because my neighborhood is special, her neighborhood's special, his neighborhood's special, every neighborhood is special and every neighborhood is unique and why the city's known as the city of neighborhoods. a couple things i remember talking about the concern i'm

hearing sit doesn't supplant anything but it supplants everything. i'm hearing bipolar arguments. i asked for this and if it's in my e-mail, i apologize, there's thousand unreads in there. but what do we have in design guidelines from the most broad to specific so people can visualize and say if we're doing on wern -- western sow ma -- soma this would apply. so when you drop your quarter in and it drops through the pegs and this is what we'll use. that would help people because they're still trying to grab on to what they know. i think this could augment it better and i think that's needed.

woe should clearly mark what's on the project so if it's a church we say it's a u.d.g. let's just call it for what it is. the unknown is creating a fear of what could happen and people are -- we have this with the r.e.t. and maybe it wasn't perfect, but over my dead body we're having another r.e.t. here because we need them in one way, shape or form around the city. we need to do more work though.

and i have a challenge of all the people and of everyone that spoke, i want to -- and an asked because i sometimes have a hard time getting my mind wrapped around the pages and there's so much stuff and it's mind numbing and i'm just a finance guy that likes good looking things. there's some buildings in 24th street we approved the demolition of a single-story house next to the mystery book store. some boxy building went in. if you reversed engineered it would the building look like it does now because they're dead wringers for what we got or have gotten something different because it skipped over these things, that would help some

people. conversely, down the street where we approved one of those health right things with the flu and cold and there's a building we use as this is what we don't want to have happen in 24th street. i'd have the a.i.a. go out and go through the sausage grind and see how do you both interpret what they are. if there's a gap it would come out in that. i want to see what that looks like.

i think the project come before us we need a checklist. it puts it down on paper and tells what the department think. as somebody else has a process change with how things get evaluated, i think with this document, this is 75%, but changing the process a little bit so you have a change in the team you talk and the architect explains it and there's a checklist there and you work from the same checklist rather than concepts. that would be great and would clarify, we might disagree but this is why we disagree. the department's determination should be in our packet.

and i've said that since we started doing this. sometimes we get a design on a building up here and i think of many of them. we can put them through the sausage mill too across from the sailor's hall on top of the mill and we can go over 10 of them and say what happened here. that would be a helpful thing. one would be on van ness and green and we wanted to put the steps down to van ness street. it was last month. commissioner moore said it's too coppery looking. there's things we can learn in how the things would work. more specific things, for districts to cover a quarter of

a percent of all the land in the city. it's tiny, actual historic districts. there's 350,000 parcels. i don't think there's any big historic district i can read war and peace driving through but as a kid i'd be able to read war and peace from one end to the other because it's so along. historic districts are a big point of con sense. if we take them out does it matter? i've seen interesting things in europe where i would have never have dreamed them. but if that's going to help get people to rally behind the steps, great.

two more things, first. the whole parity issue, sit 25%, 10 -- is it 25% difference or 10%. where do we use 10% and 25%. we'll use 25% on shrinking units and we had policies where we said don't do that, that's too much and 10% is where it's within 10% of conformance. i think we're closer to 10% to a parity issue. it seems more reasonable than 25%. because 25% brings more unintended consequences like blocking somebody's light. 10% seems to be something anybody can always get around and not pose a huge challenge to the developer.

i think the elephant in the room here is density bonus. those programs as we struggle with goes against what's in here. and we could have simplified lots and we can do a density bonus. suddenly, it goes out the window because we don't have much of a choice on a density bonus where this is what they can get and as we saw in 2019 mission and he said i'm doing what i want and we tweaked it 5% because that's all we were allowed and gave them the exceptions what we were asking for and what is the effect on projects and how do we handle those if one comes our way. i think there's some in the hopper and we should be able to have a special track for them to

guide the developer to doing the right thing. there's a lot here. great work. i want to move it forward but we have some tweaking to do. >> commissioner: i think we've made progress but i think people are still defensive about these. staff and neighborhood groups. i think you've made good progress and and i think some of the new buildings here are wonderful and we tend to get criticized for what's coming and what's being built and have projects here. i think these are meant to be somewhat vague and inspirational and picking the better elements of what's being built and what's here out and showing -- trying to inspire design professionals and architects and developers and neighbors to have

development that meets some of the criteria that are here. i know i live off the divi divisiderro corridor. i like the overlay in some neighborhoods i don't know if it's necessary. there's things that are unique about chinatown and hayes valley in north beach. i think it's fairly typical. i think it would be more tamping down the orientation of that spreet. -- spretreet. we got a lot on process and

specifics. maybe if it's a stairwell we shouldn't try to match it but getting that specific we should match when those are inhabited apartments or units there. so i think that's the way you want to go. you want to make them more inspiring and take elements of what we think is great about the city and neighborhoods and about projects and hoping we can encourage that to happen in future developments. a question about where they apply when there's