investments today to strengthen the seawall shield and strengthen the unbreakable bond between the city of san francisco and the waterfront we love so much. i want to thank our san francisco delegation in sacramento, for making sure we're prioritizing the very infrastructure that will keep the city beautiful and running, thank you very much. [applause] >> that concludes today's press conference. again, appreciate everyone coming together around a plan to protect the future of our city and our seawall. any final questions? we will end the press conference and open it up to folks to ask individual questions. thank you very much.

>> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco planning commission hearing for thursday, march 22, 2018. i will remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate disruption or outbursts of any kind. please silence your mobile devices. if you speak before the commission, please state your name. [roll call] >> clerk: we expect commissioner fong to be absent today. first on your agenda, consideration of items proposed

for continuance. item 1, 2014-003160cua, 3314 cesar chavez street, proposed to continue to april 26, 2018. item 2, 2017-001283cua, 792 capp street, to may 3. 2015-014876cua, may 3, 2018. and 2015-014876v are, and 2015-0038000cua,

2015-0038000var, and 2015-009163cua, proposed to delay. saturn street to march 29, 2018. and item 20, 2015-01279cua, 600 van ness avenue, there was an appeal filed, so it cannot be heard today and proposed for continuance to may 24, 2018. no other items for continuance and no speaker cards. >> president hillis: thank you. if there is anyone that would like to speak on the items being proposed for continuance. >> john kevlin here.

48 saturn, making good progress with the neighbors. i spoke with the corporate street neighbors yesterday and they're in agreement with the continuance. we're sharing plans at this point. hope to come back next week with everyone on the same page. with respect to 600 van ness, we're a little disappointed. this project has had tremendous community support. we're working hard. the appeal came two days ago from an appellant we have not heard from throughout the entire process. and we've been unable to talk to them since then. the request has been made to delay to may 24. i ask the commission to consider may 10, only if we can come to an agreement, we don't need to continue two more weeks. and if we need the extra two weeks and we want environmental staff to prepare the full memo in response. so we would not push for that

hearing if staff was not ready. so i request that you consider a may 10 hearing for that case. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is paul hogarth. i live across the street from 600 van ness. i did not file the appeal. that's news to me. i have mixed feelings -- >> president hillis: we're hearing about if we should continue it, not the merits of the case. >> i apologize. i have no comment then. >> president hillis: it will be on the 10th or 24th. >> good afternoon. rick gladstone, capp street partnership. the matter proposed for continuance to may 5. we initially only sought a continuance for three weeks, we're agreeable to may 5. we started out quite slowly and too limited a way, but we're doing that intensively.

thank you to the department for facilitating those. and we think it would be a shame to cut off discussions before they come to some resolution. so we believe it will take until may 5 to do that. thanks. >> president hillis: thank you. >> good evening. i'm speaking in regard to 790 capp street. to point out what was brought out on december 21, we don't have a strong resolution for this. we'll keep kicking it down the road. it's clear that the neighborhood doesn't want this. you guys had meetings to discuss the policy as to, again, how both president hillis and commissioner moore felt like the california accountability

housing act -- feel like there was a gun being put to your head, that was used several times. i don't feel like this will be any strong resolution to continue this further. again, the neighborhood is very much opposed to this. it's a grassroots movement and it's very difficult for elderly, disabled people to take time off from work, school, and obligations to attend the hearings. thank you. >> president hillis: any additional public comment on items being prop oepdz for continuance. seeing none. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: move to continue items. >> clerk: unless you are considering moving 600 van ness up to may 10 -- moi >> commissioner moore: i would call them separately. i would call continuance calendar 1-5 is noted. item 16 to march 29.

and the commission can discuss if they want to support 10 or 24 for 600 van ness. >> i second. >> clerk: you want me to call everything except the item 20? >> president hillis: and 16 to what date? >> commissioner moore: march 29. next week. that was called into the record, yes. >> president hillis: who is -- who was requesting may 4? or -- sorry. i'm confused. >> clerk: 600 van ness is the item that the sponsor is requesting an earlier date. >> president hillis: okay. >> clerk: i will call the question for items 1-5 and item 16, to dates proposed.

on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: so moved. commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. for your benefit, commissioners, internally we had a conversation about the continuance date for 600 van ness. initially we talked about may 10, but e.p. staff including e.r.o. spoke very strongly against that, felt that may 10 would be too early to prepare. project sponsor talked about in case the appeal is pulled, but just so you are aware, e.r.o. and e.p. staff were looking at may 24 as the earliest date they would be able to prepare. >> president hillis: project sponsor asked for 10 and kicked to 24 if the environmental was withdrawn. >> clerk: right. >> commissioner moore: i suggest

that staff knows best what it takes to deal with things, so the support for 24 stands and make a motion to continue to may 24. >> second. >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. on that motion to continue item 20 to may 24 -- [roll call] so moved. commissioners, that motion passes 6-0. zoning administrator, what say you on the continuances? >> i agree with the continuances, concurrent with the planning commission. >> clerk: thank you. commissioners,ing that places to content calendar for all matters listed under constitute a

consent calendar continued to be routine and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote. there will be no separate discussion unless a member of the public, staff or commission so requests, in which event, that matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered at a future hearing or this hearing. 2017-006165cua, 513 valencia street. items 7a and b, 2009-0753c, 3155 cesar chavez street. and i have no speaker cards. >> president hillis: any item you want to speak to on the consent calendar? we would pull them off if you'd like to. they're on consent. if you want to talk about them,

pull them off consent and put on regular. which item? >> cesar chavez. >> president hillis: all right. so we'll put them on regular calendar, but hear them after the informational items. >> and will you decide on the date of that calendar? >> president hillis: it's today. they were going to be on consent, but now the regular calendar. >> clerk: and after urban design guidelines? >> president hillis: let's go after informational. >> clerk: very good. do i hear a motion, commissioners? >> commissioner richards: move to approve item 6. >> clerk: on that motion to approve item 6 under your consent calendar -- [roll call]

so moved. commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. that places us under commission matters, item 8, consideration of adoption of minutes from march 1, 2018. >> president hillis: any discussions? seeing none. >> commissioner richards: motion to approve. >> second. >> clerk: on that motion -- slooun [roll call] so moved, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. item 9, commission comments and questions. >> commissioner richards: i have two items today. i'm going to request or at least float the idea -- and the reason is, we're getting it from all angles around why things are not being constructed. i ran into brian spears, who is a developer who developed the

lumina building in the upper market area on the street on saturday. he's building the flatiron at church and market. and i said, brian, what's going on? how is the market? he said, oh, my god. you can't believe it. cost of construction is going through the roof. i'm getting calls from people that have projects, some which are infamous here, because they cannot pencil the numbers out. i said, what's the deal? cost of concrete has gone up. everything has gone up. and then i read in the paper here "bay city beacon." everybody has an opinion. we heard from housing action coalition, public comment that it was inclusionary affordable that was killing everything. and then i came across this in the "bay city beacon." i will read this.

"san francisco's discretionary review process is the single largest contributing factor to high home building costs. most of the country permits and construction, meaning if it means zoning and code violations, san francisco insists on an individualized approval process." i would hope that when we have the voting inspection commission we have an informational on why things are not getting built. is it zoning? is it construction? is d.r. driving everything? 5 want to throw that out there and i will talk with the officers about that later. and one other item. i was sitting at squat and gobble at 16th and market. and talking to an individual and this individual was part of a nonprofit and they were interested in acquiring a site in upper market. i said to him, how many square

feet do you need? we started looking at properties that still had development potential. i said, the parcel you are interested in is 65 feet right now. i'm talking about the density and trying to do a mixed-use project, as part of the nonprofit mission. and i looked across the street and i said, see that building with the coppola on top? from the street to the roof, is 57 feet. when you take that kind of hat that sits on top, it's 63 feet. this individual was having a hard time understanding what 57 or 63 or 85 feet is. when i showed him, pointed that out, he's like, oh, my god. i get it. a lot of times people have a lot of understanding what height is. you say 85 people is

conceptionual. give me of a representation of height that i think people can get their arms around. the one i found here was on a website from a locality in southern california. it has a sample height change potential for sba27. as you can see on the 3d representational, the little, pinkish color boxes are the existing buildings that are 1/4 mile away from bus stops, but representation shows the potential. you can see the translucent red on top. this is something that maybe ms. rogers would have the feasibility to do looking down certain streets in the city and looking at different height limits based on what we might see coming with sba27 in next iteration. i will show you where i got this and maybe we can produce it. i think it gets people's minds

wrapped around the now and the later. this doesn't have density bonus on it. it's just the minimums. thanks. >> president hillis: thank you. we can move to the next item. >> clerk: that will place us under department matters 10, director's announcements. >> thank you. two points. one, some process improvements that we're doing as a result of the executive director from last year and internal procedures that we're going to change. for your benefit, wanted to give you a sense of what that is. we're proposing what we're calling a consolidated application process. right now, the department accepts environmental applications separately. what that does is create a situation for large projects coming in with the environmental applications sooner than entitlement because entitlement requires more detail. that creates an unfortunate feedback loop.

it means that the ceqa changes and it's a delay cycle. so we're proposing to change to a single application for both. what it does mean is that it will be more detail required up front. we think that helps the process because it will have more knowledge of the project. we're changing the p.p.a. slightly. when the p.p.a. was first instituted several years ago, we issued a letter in 60 days. and what -- a couple of years ago, changed that to extend it to a 90-day period in light of our backlog, but allowed project sponsors to submit the e application at the same time. now we're back to the original saying, we'll respond within 60 days and then when complete we'll accept your joint, consolidated application after that. in other words, going back to the original concept of the ppa

with the 60-day turn-around, but then an application that entitlement and environmental application have to be submitted at the same time. we think that will help our processes in terms of that unfortunate feedback problem between environmental review and zoning review. the second thing i wanted to mention -- and you will have a memo in your packet this afternoon related to the pipeline issue that keeps coming up. teresa has done her due diligence and i have to say, i trust her numbers more than anyone else in the city on this issue. what has happened is that while there was a drop in applications in 2016, there was a substantial rise in 2017. in the third quarter of 2017, which was the quarter that has been cited in testimony that there were applications for 3,400 units that quarter. so, in fact, in 2017 in total, applications for 2,000 more units than in 2016.

so, i mean, teresa's advice on this is that we need to make sure we look at an entire year and not a single quarter, because one project or less in a quarter can throw off the quarterly numbers and it's important to look at the entire year. and also, she thinks the discrepancy had to do with the data set that was used to come up with the numbers because it's a snapshot in time. so there will be a memo in your packet that gives you more detail. i wanted to let you no he that since 2016, we're seeing a rise in applications. thank you. that concludes my report. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. >> clerk: item 11, review of past events board of supervisors, board of appeals and historic preservation commission. >> aaron starr, legislative

affairs. at land use, three ordinances were considered to enable the san francisco conservatory of music to construct at 200 van ness avenue. it included a development agreement, planning map and amendments. the commission heard the items february 8 and voted to include the ordinances at project. public comment was generally in favor, though there were some members of the public that wanted more time to be sure that the residents of the rent-controlled units were protected. all members spoke highly of the project and need to provide housing for their students, freeing up housing for others. the committee voted to forward to the full board with positive recommendation. at the full board, the first, landmark resignation for 2117 market street. that passed its second read. and the second was landmark designation for the diamond

heights safety wall and that passed first read. two introductions of notes this week, first, ordinance by supervisor tang that would amend accessory dwelling unit controls, presumably to make them easier to approve. the second, a prohibition on hotel uses in telegraph hill-north beach district and north beach commercial district. that concludes my remarks. >> good afternoon. tim frye, department staff, here to share with you a few items from the historic preservation commission hearing. most of my comments will be to commend on the soma. there were a few actions that took place yesterday that we want to make you aware of. over head, please. article 10 landmark designation

on three properties. the first is new pullman hotel, 228-248 townsend street. this is one of the last remaining examples of the numerous residential hotels built south of market area and primary lodging area for african-american railroad workers. and it's nationally age significant for establishing the first all-black union and african-american middle class. the commission initiated landmark on piledriver bridge local 77 union hall. located in the middle. the former union hall was at 457 brian street. it's significant as one of the remaining union halls that played an important role in the

growth of organized labor and associated with 1906 post-earthquake and fire redevelopment. finally, the commission included local landmark designation at hotel utah as a representative of the pattern of development south of market that began in the 19th century when the area became the area of production in san francisco. it's a rare remaining example of the numerous residential hotels built to house seasonal workers employed by the factories on waterfront. however, during the mid to late 20th century, most of these residential hotels were removed by redevelopment. hotel utah is significant because of a legacy business in the ground floor and great example of edwardian style

architecture. there are two individual landmark designations pending. one for the grand orient complex. we're working with the soma filipino cultural heritage district representatives on that designation. and that will come before the commission at a future date. they're working with the property owners of 645 harrison, large, streamline, modern industrial building proposed for redevelopment to a complex of hotel, office and residential. working closely with them to make sure that the designation complements, aligns with their proposal for the property. and then, finally, the commission initiated the designation of two districts, which will be before this commission at a future date, as required by the planning code. the first, warehouse district --

this district is near south park and abutts the existing south end landmark district. it's known for its small collection of very small-scale, light industrial buildings from the 20th century distinctive from the broader, south end district, which, as you know, is represented by mid- to large-scale brick and masonry buildings. and the second, a small change to the kearney market mason, which is in the downtown area to pick up three parcels that were overlooked in the 1980s. these properties will be reclassified as category 4 contributing structures and directly across the street from

the old mint. mint mission conservation will come up at a future hearing. there's a horseshoe-shaped district that buffers around the mint and that will be initiated under article 11 of the planning code. hpc comments will be presented when the full plan is presented. that concludes my presentation. >> commissioner richards: on central soma is, that article 11? >> article 10. >> commissioner richards: are the other proposed districts in the ugd map that's in our packet? >> good question. i don't believe they are. >> commissioner richards: maybe we can note them.

>> thank you. >> i will only add that the historic preservation commission added a new commissioner, finally, their seventh. they've been without a full commission for about a year. kate black, former planning director of city of piedmont. if there is nothing further, commissioners -- oh. >> good afternoon, president hillis, commissioners, corey teague, to give a report on board of appeals. the board met last night and heard two cases of interest to the planning commission. however, before those cases, there was substantial public comment that heaped praise to the board's outgoing director cynthia goldstein, retiring at the end of march. most of the comments were based on the unanimous opinion that she's been a model civil servant, serving for the last 30 years. this included comments from

scott sanchez, who briefly reappeared, solely to provide some moving comments about his opinion of ms. goldstein. and also from mayor farrell, who declared march 30 cynthia goldstein day in san francisco. it was actually very touching. board announced the hiring of julie rosensteen. she's been at sfmta since 2005. the board heard a rehearing for an appeal at 2650 hyde street, which the board unanimously denied on february 7. the proposal was to flatten the gable roof of an existing two-unit building, add roof deck and construct an additional third floor. there was a point hearing for discretionary review last april.

planning department recommended that the roof deck be set back 5 feet from the property lines. commission agreed and voted 4-1 to take d.r. zoning administrator granted the variance with the same condition. d.r. requestor appealed the building permit. board voted to deny the hearing request. the board heard an appeal of the building permit for 100 gate street, which proposed a third-story addition to a single-family home. a discretionary review hearing was held. the commission found no exceptional or extraordinary circumstances and voted 4-0 to not take d.r. and approve as opposed. d.r. requestor made the same arguments to board of appeals, which were directly related to the potential impacts to his

adjacent home. the board found that the residential design guidelines do not provide access to light and voted unanimously to deny the appeal. i'm available for any questions you may have. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. >> clerk: seeing none, we can move on to general public comment. at this time, members of the public can address items except for agenda items. with respect to agenda items it, comment will be afforded when it is heard. up to 3 minutes. >> president hillis: we have two, rose hillson, but others are welcome to speak. rose? >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm back here again, twice in two weeks, it's getting over burdensome, i guess. i have an issue with the sunshine request that i made. i don't know what the procedures

are for planning department, but i ask for some records and what i have now in my hands are three u.s.b.s that paid $44, version 2.0 u.s.b.s, to make a point. i had a dialogue asking for these records. i know they're fairly large files, but i wanted the records either zipped or from a cloud, like a link to a drop box or something or even on a dvd that's 700 megabytes. they said, no, can't be done. i do know from other people in the public that the planning department does provide a link to drop box and they're not charged for that. so -- and they have larger files than what i even have here. so i'm just asking for some -- what i call -- even service. i don't know what else to call it. but i find that to be a little disconcerting for every person

to be handled a little differently. >> president hillis: thank you. mr. bus? >> steven bus. i want to thank you for the director -- i don't know how to pronounce the name, the director for the information about the planning pipeline. i'm super pleased to hear that the internal analysis no the showing what the public data is showing. throughout the whole time, i've wanted to be wrong because i don't want to see it collapse. so i'm glad to hear that. and i will also ask that that analysis be done with regularity

and be made available to the public. i would love to see that along with the quarterly report. i don't have new graphs today, because i'm still working on new data on commissioner richards' recommendation and got new data, which i've started to analyze, but turns out has a problem. everything after 2015 had no units reported. so they're working on fixing that. and hope that the publicly available version of that can stay up to date. i feel like this is coming to a good conclusion where the data is becoming accurate and the report shows that the collapse of the public data is not happening. i will, of course, do my own analysis once the data is updated. i'm really pleased to hear about

this outcome. i think that's it. all right. thanks. >> president hillis: thank you. >> hi. georgia shudish. i took president hillis's advice and went to the b.i.c. and they've agendaized your joint meeting. it was february 21 and the one yesterday and no one has gone previously but i went yesterday. so i showed them some pictures and some i've shown you and some i haven't shown you but i will show them to you now. so get ready. there's that. that's one. i don't have the before and after. this is during. this is now. i think there's a violation pending on that one. here's another one. here's this. i think this is reminiscent of

state street, for better or worse. there's that one. i think i may have showed you that. here's the detail of this one. it's now done. that sold for $5 million. i think that was two units and now i think it's one unit, but haven't been able to figure it out totally. just to talk about this one here. there was a violation from the building department put on it. they said a demolition permit was required. but there was planning enforcement and the staff went out and what they found was, it met two of the four criteria, but it wasn't the grouping, so it was very close to the threshold but not the right grouping. we can talk about that in april. and this one, too. they had the building department with a violation on it. they said a demolition permit

was required. here's the building. i think staff said there were side walls left. everyone is thinking about enforcement. at least that's the take i got from yesterday at the b.i.c. but i hope what's talked about more in april is what happens at the beginning. what happens at the beginning? once enforcement comes around, it's a pain in the [beep] for everybody. it's a pain in the [beep]. it's lining my refrigerator analogy. if you have food in your refrigerator and you can make dinner, why go out and spend $100? make dinner at home. do you want this back or can i have this? >> take it. >> thank you. have a good day. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please?

>> good afternoon, president hillis, fellow commissioners, canny campbell with sheet metal workers 104. i'm chair of san francisco building and construction trades council public policy committee, here today to let you know that -- as you know, our city has a housing crisis and the topic, hot topic, is modular housing. we're not opposed to them, the building trades, but we believe it should be brought into compliance with san francisco building codes. san francisco is unique among california communities with respect to climate, geographical, topical and other traditions. san francisco faces extreme risk of earthquakes in a highly concentrated urban area.

for these and other reasons, san francisco has local amendments to the california building standards code. buildings must conform to the code to obtain development approval from the planning department, planning commission, and building permits from the department of building inspection. so we have -- are working with supervisors and the mayor's office to get legislation, as i said, to bring factory built housing into san francisco building codes. yesterday at the building inspection commission, we gave this white paper to the commission. i have copies here to give to all of you. and we ask that you bring this topic up with the joint commission you are having next month with the building

inspection commission. this is a public health and safety issue. the residents that will live in modular, factory built housing, should be afforded the same protections as conventionally built housing. in addition, our first responders that will have to -- if they have to attend to, god forbid, a fire break out, we don't -- they shouldn't have to go into buildings that are built to less stringent code than san francisco's building codes. thank you very much for your time. have a great afternoon. >> president hillis: thank you, mr. campbell. next speaker, please? >> todd david on behalf of the san francisco housing coalition. i was surprised to hear commissioner richards state that the san francisco housing action commission seems to think that inclusionary percentages is what

is killing housing. i don't believe that i've stated that or we've stated that. so i thought it was important that we set the record straight as to what it is that we do believe and happy to announce the job of representing ourselves. san francisco housing coalition believes there's a basket of costs that go into building housing. that basket is not limited to but includes raw materials, labor, financing, impact fees, and inclusionary. and if you look at the basket as a whole, we have to look and say, is the basket as a whole causing projects to become economically unfeasible? as policy makers, what do we have control over? we don't have control over building materials or labor or financing. we have impact fees and

inclusionary rates that way have control over. as the basket goes up in cost, perhaps we need to look at turning down inclusionary rates. that's policy decisions. as the costs go down, we can turn up impact fees and inclusionary. so i think it's important that it's not about one particular cost. there's a lot of impacts and they all interact with each other and we need to talk about how they interact with each other. thank you. >> president hillis: ms. clark? >> laura clark, i agree with that metaphor of the basket of costs. also wanted to talk about -- there's been a lot of talk about the ever larger number of projects that have been entitled but not built. i think the latest number that i heard was 65,000, which doesn't

seem direct to me, but it's been widely tweeted. so we know that that's accurate. [laughter] >> i will forward you the report. >> great. what i would prefer -- i love reading reports, but i think an actual study of the breakdown of the entitled but not built is, what it is by large project, understanding how and why a lot of the mega projects. the shipyard will be set back by a long time. where and why is that happen ing? is it something that would be a great use of planning department funding and figuring out the answer to that question. and should not be used as an excuse to stop doing other things that will get housing built faster. and i think that maybe that would be a better use of departmental time than doing a retrospective on what all of the housing stock currently is. the planning department is currently set up to instead of

kreef eig -- creating the next a plan, but to spend that part of the budget on figuring out our housing stock. that's a job that's explicitally supposed to be assessor/recorder's job and not really the planning department's job, but because we have, perhaps, green screen computers in the assessor/recorder's office, we don't necessarily know what is happening. and perhaps a better use of all the different departments that have different -- you know, the data not moving from one department to the next department, we all know when we send off the permits to the department of building inspection, it's pdfs going back and forth and fill this out. we all know it's not a functional way to move data about our very complex housing pipeline around. so we don't end up knowing these things. and so these are bigger

questions, but it's not the best use of the planning department's time and money to do this retrospective. it would be a better use of time and money to get the assessor/recorder off the green screen computers and knowing what our housing stock is and it would be the best use of our time for the planning department to be looking forward and for you to ask the planning department to be making plans, to be upzoning the westside. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. 95 additional general public comment? seeing none, commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: a comment on one of the members of the public that surprised me with that d.b.i. issued a demo notice and that the department said no demo was needed. that's backwards from what the narrative has been. i'm surprised it happened twice. it could be happening for a good reason. i don't know. can't wait until we have demolition with strong enforcement, but i would love the department to look in and

verify that that was the case. completely agree with the basket of costs, mr. david. i didn't want to misrepresent your position and you stated it very well. one of the things, and i think, too, the building trades council, all this stuff goes into why isn't housing getting built? and part of it is, safe housing. so if the building code needs to be changed or we can find a cheaper way to do it, doesn't meet code, we have to figure that out. i will use mr. david's metaphor, but the basket of things to talk about on wye housing isn't getting built. and maybe it is because things are preventing it. a couple of things. when i talk to developers -- and i want to throw this in the basket as well. i understand that there are future contracts available on labor and materials, concrete. so if you are going to build a

skyscraper, you don't wait until the day that you will put shovel in the ground. you buy it in advance and take delivery when you think you will be doing it. so i think this would be a part of a discussion about how does construction happen, especially on the mega projects. to the comment on the issue of the green screen computers can in the assessor's office, i just read yesterday, they had an expose about an assessor and how she brought it from the 1950s to the early 21st century. i think she has a lot of data. the reason why the planning department is wanting to look at what kind of stock we have is, not just because of numbers, but because there are people living in it. that gets to the root of what it is. a lot of tenticles coming off the units. we don't have a registry of

rental units or anything in this city. other cities do. i think it's time to do work and get one. i think it's the rent control board and it's 2018, we don't have any data on the rental units we have? it's crazy. thanks. or whether they're rent-controlled. >> president hillis: okay. so we can move to item 12. >> clerk: central soma plan informational presentation. >> commissioners, we have a couple of speakers for you on this item today. wanted to kick it off. i guess the thing i wanted to talk about is two major items that you have heard about and will continue to hear about and i wanted to clarify. anne marie will make comments and give you more detail shown in the memo that we sent you yesterday, i believe. the comment about the temporary

location for the flower mart. and i want to clarify a couple of things. that location is not necessarily a central soma issue, per se, where the flower mart may be temporarily located. it's clearly related, but there are no sites within central soma that will accommodate the flower mart on a temporary basis. the city is looking at a number of locations for a temporary location. you've heard a lot of discussion. we are with the developer looking at multiple locations for a temporary location for the flower mart. the second thing is relating to the jobs, housing balance question. it's interesting that -- i guess my sarcastic response is that we're an office of planning, no the an office of housing production. we think it's extremely important that we look at the

city's existing housing stock because it's never been looked at in any detailed way. we need to understand who lives there and what the price ranges are, the character of the stock, age of the stock, and all of this is data we don't currently have. it's an extremely important thing. in addition, the board plan you approved last year includes a number of projects that number 7,500 units that we're working on, including the hub and other projects in the southeast. you will hear more on that from anne marie and the memo that she and josh prepared for you. and, thirdly, wanted to say that related to the next phase of work on housing analysis and the next area plan. you approved for us to work on the area around and including 4th and king rail yard. and that rail yard itself is about 20 acres, as you know, but

it's also important that it's not just that parcel but the area around it. we're starting work on that this year. and that could include the rail yard and showplace square and central soma. we'll come back to you in a couple of months with the proposal of how we'll approach that work, the boundaries and analysis, but it represents another look at an area that is close to transit and other job-related services. with that, i will let anne marie kick in with housing production. thank you. >> thank you very much. anne marie rodgers, planning department staff. i'm joined by steve wertheim. commissioners, you're considering an action on a plan to influence growth in the city. are we doing enough for housing?

my presentation will cover central soma's plan for housing and we'll place that plan within the context of our housing work. central soma is based on solid concepts that are central to the city's and region's future. it's putting jobs in the right location and producing as much housing as is optimal, considering the other land uses and transportation aspects city-wide. this presentation will cover the following. central soma delivers housing. i think some people are understand the impression that not much housing is planned here. i will dispel that idea. this provides jobs for the city that cannot be accommodated elsewhere. this is key. there's a reason why jobs hubs should be central. san francisco and the region are better off when that happens. adding housing in central soma

can be achieved with certain costs. i will discuss some options. housing capacity is increasing across the city. there are many neighborhoods that work well to have housing, and i will discuss the latest developments. we have more plans to increase capacity under development now. if you like housing production, more is on tap. we'll talk about the biggest plans under way. and then talk about even more plans for increasing housing capacity. housing is at a crisis. even with all the housing plan, it makes sense to plan for more. i will describe some ideas to see what speaks to you for our next move. central soma plan is described as a jobs plan, but it will also

have housing units. if you think central soma has a lot of office space, you may be surprised to learn it has the same amount of square footage said of dedicated for housing, 8 million square feet. while central soma mayen delivering an impressive amount of office space, it is delivering equally impressive amount of housing. these are housing-focused plans with high-rises and we'd have more housing. i would note that central soma provides that housing in mid-rise building size. it can achieve great density in an understated matter. and considers the evolution of our skyline.

candlestick and treasure island are two clean slate, redevelopments of massively public owned sites. central soma delivers the same housing as each one, even though they're bigger. at build-out, central soma would laugh 30,000 residents. it would make it 50% more dense than paris and twice as dense as barcelona. most of the area's sites are expected to be housing and we know central soma meets other city and neighborhood goals, too. it provides a modest amount of space for hotel, mixed retail, community facility and builds on the eclectic vibe of the

neighborhood. central soma does provide jobs that cannot be accommodated elsewhere. the city has added 100,000 housing units in the last 15 years. many of the same planning processes reduced job capacity. job growth will occur and central soma is the best location for the growth that we know is coming. we must remember that it's important for jobs near transit. this is true from an environmental or vehicular emissions perspective or thinking about it from a walkability and human point of vi view. studies show that people will not walk as far to get to work as they will to get home. it extra exacerbate traffic and air quality issues. outside central soma there are

very few places for the jobs and none have the infrastructure. san francisco's longstanding policy has been to promote high-density job growth in a high-density area near high-density transit. most is zoned nor residential uses, potential for office space is highly constrained. this also aligns with our social equity policy as job centers away from transit can limit access to jobs or cause financial, social and health impacts from long commutes. keeping jobs in core san francisco is practical and sensible public policy. if the jobs were to move outside of the core san francisco, we know that livability and environmental outcomes could be worse, as we would expect the jobs to be in san matao or santa clara. it will reduce the need to

commute to jobs because it will keep the jobs where people are living. we will get an unusually high amount of density housing with the plan. we know there is interest in getting even more housing here. i will talk about the tradeoffs. there are two alternative approaches for possibilities for adding more housing. let's talk about those and the challenges. approach number one. if you want to get the plan going now, we must work within the constraints of environmental impact approach. number two, if you don't like the constraints of the e.i.r., there will be delay and added uncertainty. for the first alternative, steve will be presenting some of the amendments directly after me for the plan. it will show how the plan could be amended to add as much housing as possible or 8,300 units. i will jump into approach number

two. what would it mean to produce more housing than allied by the c.i.r. to go beyond 8,300 would cause delay, increasing cost and uncertainty. delay is important because housing production is part of the central soma plan. we're working with supervisor kim and the mayor's office on legislation to enact david chui's bill to speed housing production. if it's applied, housing in central soma could come to fruition. there are 2,000 units in the plan area ready to start construction in a few years. notably, the delay would im peril a 200-unit affordable housing unit dependent on federal financing. also added costs. i'm not sureal