>> commissioner richards: okay. that's reasonable. the other question is, my real estate friends always say, the smaller the unit, the higher the price per square foot because it's become more naturally affordable. the bigger the house or whatever, becomes less per square foot. was that included in here in terms of the first, the two compariso comparisons? >> i do believe that price per square foot is higher when the units are smaller. >> commissioner richards: okay. great. thank you. what's interesting is, we have a push for more units, more units come on the market, rents plateau, but push for units make construction work scarcer. and so we're in a pickle. a pickle, i think. and part of what the public comment was, it's not just

relying on this type of a funding mechanism. it's bigger than that. thank you. >> commissioner koppel: a follow-up question. the return on investment is profit made by the developer? >> developer's return. >> commissioner koppel: what about the bank or financing return on investment be also? will that incredibly add to the numbers? >> i don't remember the assumption about the interest rates that they used. that's another variable in this. the assumption is that there is financing for the construction as well. >> commissioner koppel: i heard a number of about 20% to 22% that the banks are asking. and that seems high. >> off the top of my head, i don't know what the assumptions

were. >> commissioner richards: i just want to say. i did get the report. i went over it. sorry. >> commissioner moore: mr. egan, you got a lot of pushback from public comment. i cannot participate one way or another, because i generally trust what you are presenting, including comparing apples to apples. where do you stand with the comments that members of the public made regarding the accuracy of your data? >> i would say that -- i share the concern that the data is not as transparent as we wish it could be. i don't know how that solve that problem in the short term. i think we might want to think of ways, and discuss it with the controller, of getting audited

construction data after the fact so we get an apples-to-apples index so we're not always in a world of, trust me. i don't believe your numbers. so i'm generally sensitive to that. having said that, think we've done it the best way we could. on the construction cost issue, the fact that we used the same consultants doing the same methodology, they're reflecting 6% annual growth in construction costs. that's been typical of construction cost growth this decade. there was a question about public comment that i will throw to jacob about the original height on the areas and choice of prototypes, which i think jacob can speak to better than me. >> and i want to clarify something about construction costs. they do range depending on which

of the columns you are looking at. they sent them to general contractors and said, what would you bill for this. if you translate it to per square foot, it's $386. it's $368 to $386. $330, i'm not sure why that was low, that was for low-density condominium project. so that's a range. and it's a 12% increase from two years ago. regarding prototypes selected, we looked at soft sites in both districts, going back to our work for affordable housing bonus program. and we found about 10 of them. we chose a site 12,500 square feet. and it's absolutely true that there was a change in zoning. in divisa dero, it's true that

it did not change, but it was the most restrictive in heights. and so in the fillmore, it went to 50-foot height limit. we chose that because it was the most prevalent. and in divisadero, to 65, which again, is the most prominent. there are pipeline projects, but we felt that we should do a story and it was not about any one project. and looking at numbers from an objective third party talking to folks in the industry. thank you. >> did you have another comment?

>> commissioner moore: i wanted to close the comment that i believe that data-driven analysis is very helpful and very important to us. it's difficult for us to stand and people can agree or disagree how data can be derived. if there is any follow-up discussion, mr. egan, that you believe would answer questions that the public raised criticism of you, i would like to hear about it, but i think it's almost impossible for us other than relying on what you do generally with outstanding work. i cannot side one way or another, but i hope you will find a way to discuss it with the people that criticized you. >> i'm happy to do that. commissioner, we have -- we're in a poor position right now to do the research ourselves. and that's why we have this level of reliance on

consultants. >> commissioner moore: thank you. >> commissioner richards: two comments. first, i didn't mean to be gruff towards anybody. i'm a little bit cranky. in a world where we have fake news and stuff coming out of washington, where people are trying to make people believe stuff that's not true, it's nice to have data-driven analysis, where we can at least question each other and say, may, maybe the construction costs might be different, may be other ways to do it, so take it in the spirit in which it's intended. secondly, what do we do? now we have this analysis. two projects. what do we do? raise one and raise the fees? i don't know. if i were one of those developers, i would be saying, what do we do now? i walk by both of those sites twice a week. i always go, god, these things

are not happening yet. now i can see -- >> it's a very important question. i think the expectation is that now zoning would reflect some change for higher inclusionary to reflect the increase in value that's been conferred and now this is intended to inform that -- include that code language. so the -- it's up to supervisors as well as you all to come to terms with what that is. we will continue to refine it and come to you and the expectation is that the increase in density on divisadero would be so much greater than there would be an inclusionary requirement. that's the expectation. >> thank you. >> if i could just add a little

more detail to the legislative process is that you have made some recommendations to the board of supervisors on the pending ordinances for changing the inclusionary in divisadero and fillmore. thises with a required report. it's been transmitted to the report. if the board chooses, they can take it up anytime. i don't think it's been scheduled for any hearing that we know of. in the meantime, projects that come forward, like the director said, we would take into consideration this report in making a recommendation on the project. >> thank you. and thank you. for a great report. i think it's a valuable tool for the community to negotiate. with that, we're going to take a very small break. so i beg your forgiveness.

>> and i apologize to the chair, to return to 7b, so the acting zoning administrator. >> yes. let's do that and take a break. >> i will be kind to grant the variance for that project on cesar chavez as well. >> thank you. if we could, just before we take a break announce that we will take the urban design guidelines next. >> okay. very good. >> item 15 will be taken out of order next after the break. >> we'll be back at 5:25. >> welcome back to the san francisco planning commission regular meeting for thursday, march 22, 2018. i will remind members of the public to silence your mobile devices. and when speaking before the commission, if you care to, do state your name for the record.

commissioners through the chair, we're taking item 15 out of order for case 2016-000162cwp, urban design guidelines. this is for your adoption today. >> maya small, planning commission staff. we bring you today a resolution to adopt the urban design guidelines. it will apply design direction for projects in neighborhood commercial, mixed use and downtown commercial districts and for projects, where 25 or more residential units, 150 feet, or nonresidential uses in residential. due to community feedback, we'll provide applicability. that i will design later.

there's a revised resolution that's been passed arnaz well. -- around as well. to understand how the urban design guidelines will affect the current process, let's start with an understanding of how design review works. it's triggered under application requirements including downtown, can't use along with 311 and 312 and also during the site review process. so when we have a project that comes in now, of course, we're looking at the zoning, location, and the use. and we're immediately looking to see what existing guidelines apply. so this is a map that shows some of the different areas of the city and the purple that you will see is where the residential design guidelines apply.

those are our districts, rm, rh, rto. the areas in gray that have the line around them are articulated areas where design guidelines exist currently. some of them are redevelopment areas. so you have -- so we have different situations and how guidance is given. the most matte gray are either under our jurisdiction or industrial or pdr or public sites. and then the orange are areas that do not have guidelines unless they have the overlay. mostly those are covered by the nc, urban design guidelines as they exist in commerce and industry in the general plan. a lot of the areas, particularly in mixed use, where we're seeing so many projects, don't have guidance. we're interpreting the general

plan. so generally, how design review works now, we're looking at the design element and the aspects that are in our policies and doing interpretations. often that is through conversation at the commission. it's also staff interpretation. the planners and design review staff. these are broader concepts of urban design. in some cases, there are some examples. we're often having to make a little bit of a leap from the text into the current conditions are what we may see on a site. note that the residential design guidelines, which are most commonly applied are incredibly useful. we use them every day. they come up at commission repeatedly. designers that start with them are frequent fliers. people that work in the citird familiar with them. they know the expectations of them. planners also know the expectations.

they're listening to the way the commission is using them and interpreting them and hoping to prepare properly before approvals. and neighbors and the public, members of the public, use them frequently as a way of supporting their concerns and understanding prior's issues and how issues relate to each other. it's an effective system and we think it makes a common conversation. we currently do not have this kind of clarity for a lot of districts. neighborhood districts, mixed use and downtown commercial, in particular. so we're really looking for a system that can help to provide the similar guidance and these are, of course, areas in which so many projects are happening and neighborhood compatibility is critical to get a sense of community and feeling of place. through this process, in talking with many members of the public, it's been suggested that the residential design guidelines might work, be adapted in some

way to cover areas. a lot of people feel that neighborhood commercial zones are really residential with a store at the bottom. as we've talked about here before in informationals, residential design guidelines do great with the individual homes, but do not cover things like storefronts. they don't have any retail or commercial aspects to them, including the public realm related to the areas and don't address the larger block patterns, especially in portrero, where you have former industrial areas becoming more residential. how do you establish the block patterns that really work? a lot of transition al areas would not have enough guidance. recently with neighborhood groups, there's been concern that there are urban guidelines

and neighborhood historic districts. it's covered through secretary of interior standards and many historic districts have the attributes and characteristics put into their documents and we're looking at those and those almost always take precedence when we look at a new project in a district. at this point, you have this within your packets and it's easier to read, but this is a comparison where we're showing the urban design guidelines in the column on the left and the topics that that covers in comparison to, say, the residential design guidelines. there is more about the architecture and scale and nothing on the commercial areas the historic design guidelines are reference to the secretary of interior standards and you can see they cover architecture very, very well. they don't cover some of the site design issues as well.

we have a project under way that we believe will cover this very beautifully. it will be an outreach process in the development of the historic design guidelines for san francisco, which will make a more local interpretation of how the broader standards used at a initial level will work. one of the things that have been changed from the packets last week and resolution before you today, we're suggesting the removal of the application of the urban design guidelines in historic districts. in trying to simplify and clarify the process, it really makes sense as much as we can to have one set of guidelines for different areas. therefore, since that project will be coming and supporting the areas that the urban design guidelines need not apply. those will be able to cover the aspects that are not covered currently and how things are interpreted. so a little bit of history of how we got to this point. during the recent wave of

applications in the last five years, commission asked planning to lock at how we can increase consistency in developing design guidelines. this is really going to make the design review process as effective as possible and consistency. to make sure that we're setting the bar. in the last five years, we've had more architects coming from outside of the city. more projects that are happening at a fast pace, making sure that the values of san francisco are really placed first and foremost, so the projects come in as well as they can without the struggle in the initial process. in the beginning of the process, the urban design guidelines were studied and this was a way to start with existing policy, rather than new policy. it's the urban design guidelines that are meant to be implementation for existing policy that we have, to make it as useful and common sense and

have a common language that we can speak to in this process. so we looked at the residential design guidelines we looked at some of the guidelines that are based on use types, for example, formula retail, but a lot of them are western soma, parts of the city, really looking to make sure that these would be compatible with the other guidelines. two key values came from this assessment that was fundamental to the guidelines specifically and that's neighborhood compatibility. that's endemic to the plan and urban design element as well as the guidelines we've been reviewing. and then human-centered design. making sure that it's a great place for pedestrian activity and a neighborhood character point of view and brought to the human scale. within your packets, you will see many pages that describe the

sense of history, where they come from, that it's policy being translated to something that's very usable. and also showing how the proposed urban design guidelines come and work with the existing guidelines that exist in the cities. in the initial stages, the planning department worked with an urban design working group that included many identified neighborhood groups that had been interested in guidelines for a while and then worked with design and professionals to make sure that it takes on design and how guidelines work, practical, made sense, a little bit of testing them out. we really wanted some participation to try it on a little bit to make sure it made sense to even start a broader conversation. from that point, we broadened the outreach to the public. we went to over 20 different

community group meetings, meetings we were invited to. we tried to make sure that everybody knew as much about the project as we could. we did our first informational in 2016. also hosted six workshops in the last 1 1/2 years. it was to roll up our sleeves and see how it may work. we're also talking about applicability, that is something that we're resolving and details on content. we wanted to get everybody's perspective. today we're presenting urban design guidelines and there's been a lot of contributions that have come to develop them. there's a few small details from when we last talked about them in january. i will go through that in a minute. so the content, site design, architecture and public realm. three main topics has they have

been. in site design, site design really looks at how individual buildings add up to a block and how the blocks add up to a city, open space, and massing. and it talks about how you would match light wells, how you would carve the backs of buildings and maintain open space, looking at how the front of a building needs to be compatible with the other fronts of buildings, as well as the sides of buildings, which are often very exposed. to really see how sculpting the building relative to the other buildings can work. highlighting unique patterns. that's really important to maintain the specific nature. and making sure that not only buildings next to each other

relate in the topography, but even longer facades. and maintaining a consistent street wall, whether it be in a dense place with taller and smaller buildings together or a more consistent height and area where you want to maintain a street wall, the front presence and how the top is sculpted to give that sense of scale. under architecture, a couple of fundamentals. one to have a clear, organizing idea, or a central intention so that the architecture has its own integrity. responding to neighborhood form and materials, again, thinking about the shapes of how it feels from the street. relating to nearby heights and widths. widths is what we see frequently. when something has a longer facade from the other buildings on the street, making sure that that facade responds to the rhythm and pattern of the typical lot widths in that area, on the other side of the street and that side of the street

that's something that we think will be useful, so you get the cadence and feel of the neighborhood extended. and similar window sizes and shapes. making sure that residential buildings feel like residential buildings and not crossing into another type that feels like it might have a different use or something that feels out of scale. providing a facade with texture and human scale. this guideline asks to make sure that materials are compatible. it doesn't necessarily mean adding a cornice, but the intention of it. and it's sculptural and thoughtful, as well as complimenting people at the ground. it's active use. it's transparency, making sure that it acts with the

neighborhood. connecting to public space, parks or privately owned, public open space or even the sidewalk. supporting public transportation, and all of our transportation issues. fostering walking, playing and rest. we have a very intense, built environment and want to be sure that open spaces provide relief, including natural space and sustainability and each one of our sections here, and public realm, includes really specifically a guideline that asks for every unique quality to be embodied rather than making a sameness for all of the neighborhoods. we're trying to do the opposite and allow that specificity to come in for development. due to concerns around the

neighborhood commercial areas in conversation with the public, we developed an additional supportive set of guidelines. we're developing four of those right now and we anticipate there will be more. this is a way for individual neighborhood commercial districts to have an extra set, extra layer, that would supersede any urban design guideline that compliments them, that gets into more specific character traits, architecture, site issues, parallel with urban design guidelines, so their specificity is within guidance. we've been on several site visits now with the groups, walking around, listening to how they describe how they see their neighborhood. and how it's used, looks, feels. north beach, polk and pacific, we have draft versions. you have polk-pacific in front

of you. those are far down in the process. we met for a site visit, the work in the mission. we see that as an extension of the work that's supportive of that process. and japantown as well. they've been patiently waiting for the urban design guidelines to be completed. we've been working with them on specific aspects on things in the neighborhood that would be supported. within the resolution, we confirm the commitment. it's something there we're actively engaging in now and after the adoption, we see as a process for the neighborhood commercial districts and any district that comes forward that is interested in doing that. applicability. this is the map from last week that shows the urban design guidelines applying in the mixed use and commercial zoning. we're asking to apply for the larger projects, 150-foot

frontage for 25 units or more. that's been changed from the last time we were here. we upped the number of units to look at the larger plan unit development conditions. we've included to sunset that aspect of the residential uses, keeping the u.d.g.s applying to nonresidential uses, but for the larger ones, when the residential design guidelines are modified and revised and that adoption is revised, we could have that applicability drop out for the residential ones. when believe that the guidelines could be modified to accommodate those concerns. so this was the map from last week. if we remove the historic districts from the areas, that's what this map is showing. you can see there are portions of the city in which particularly north of market street that are removed from the map, that then the district guidelines, when they would be adopted, would apply in the areas and we believe would cover the issues that are of concern.

one other note and this has to be updated slightly. in the resolution, there's a request to remember some areas removed, north beach and polk and pacific. it's a map that those -- that's a slightly different orange. hard to see in the screen. so those would come forward when guide lines are adopted. we would be able to have that as part of the picture and for now removing those. so this is the matrix of applicability. there's been some concern around which guidelines when multiple guidelines apply, what supersedes what. so this is prior to removing historic districts.

if there's a site where both the residential guidelines and urban guidelines apply, residential would supersede, if there's conflict. any special area guidelines that are developed and adopted would supersede as well. so urban design guidelines are the fundamental foundation of making sure that anything specific would be over that. so we've clarified through the process the urban design guidelines don't ask for projects to be designed the same way. they're intended to support neighborhood compatibility. so it's really about looking

very specifically about where the project is going in and being responsive to that. they do not change zoning, height, code requirement, general plan or existing guideline documents. this is something that's separate from that, not modifying anything else. the conversations we've had have been very fruitful and we've concluded a lot of concerns, recently, adding light wells and we've added in site setbacks and a reduction in rear glazing and lighting to deal with privacy concerns, something that comes up here. and then in the past, we've added a lot more neighborhood commercial districts. we've modified the applicability in the residential districts. it was going to be for all the residential districts. we modified that to certain sites and new at a much higher unit count. so it's only in those instances and to sunset, along with

maintaining the nonresidential applicability. and we've added special area guidelines. there was a waiver in the proposal and that was removed as of last year. all the public comment has been documented and it's part of your packet. so we have many pages that show all the comments that we receive from the public and our responses to them and how the guidelines have been modified or how we understood the comments. and from here, i will hand it over to my colleague to talk more about how they actually work as applied. >> hi. david winslow, staff architect. good evening, commissioners. we walked with community members and tried to test out guidelines in neighborhood commercial contexts and through workshops. and we start with the zoning diagram that allows height, lot

coverage, setbacks, rear yard. and this is what we -- and not very appeasing to the context. so we would illustrate how we would walk through and use some select urban guidelines to modify the shape of the building to be more responsive to its content. the first would be at the site at the architectural level. did i zip past too fast? sorry. harmonized relationships between building streets and open spaces. this gets to create a street wall, a district with a 50-foot height limit and we want to be sure that the building that is proposed fits within that context. look at the height, adapt the

site. and look at the ajays -- adjacent to that. then we go on. and modlate vertically and add the scale to the building that makes it fit with its context.

things like the depth of the store fronts. the detail, the human scale elements that provide a traditional sense of pattern rhythm and scale to a store front at the human level. and those are a few examples that would apply to neighborhood commercial districts and to all districts when we look at the context. we're hoping that with these illustrations and this information you can find the urban design guidelines and they're ready for adoption. >> thank you.

>> we have her here. >> thank you commissioners. acting chair thank you for entertain north iteing this ite. i'll keep my comments brief. it's been a long process with u.d.g.s we held our first meeting in district 3 about a year ago now. that was attended by 60 people who were concerned and you know, often times it's a sense of skepticism, if not in worse cases opposition that brings us to the table with planning staff and that is kind of how this originated. our involvement originated a year ago was how are these guidelines going to apply to our neighborhood commercial districts to some of the unique parts of district 3 that people hold so dear. i would characterize that skepticism because it's interesting conceptually and it comes up in different contexts.

in the question is, what is the difference between a guideline or a zoning administrator bulletin, particularly when we talk about things like light wells and side set backs and rear yard set backs that are tied actually to planning code sections. what is the difference between this stand alone document and a code section that it has to be legislated and aboard by the board of supervisors, but the mechanism by which it is approved? i think to the public, projects sponsors and members of the public, to community members, the effect is kind of the same. and so when the urban design guidelines came across it was how was this going to apply to my neighborhood. and that you know, overtime got us to a really interesting conversation of run app lick ability. i want to thank staff for in duldulling our office and last august, initiating a process in

our neighborhood commercial districts to start coming up with these special area guidelines walking through our neighborhood commercial districts with community members and trying to craft something that might be more unique to these interesting corridors. so, the resolution before you today, which our office worked on with planning staff, now exempt those neighborhood commercial districts in district 3 for which those special area guidelines are under way which is fantastic. i hope that by exempting those n.c.d.s catalyzes putting together those special area guidelines in a complete and nice presentation. and it also exempts our historic districts. i think that is it comfortable that those districts would comply with the secretary of interior standards pending more unique design guidelines for those districts. our community members who you

heard speak in opposition or with skepticism are on hand today. i want to thank telegraph hill dwellers, pacific avenue neighborhood association for stepping up and following this. we rely on our community members to do things like that when we don't have capacity to do so. i hope that we can all come around to supporting this today. i have to skip off to an off-site meeting but i look forward to hearing good news from this. thank you so much. >> thank you. so if we have any members of the public who want to comment? i don't have any speaker cards. i do have speaker cards, sorry. ms. rose hinton. she's not here anymore. neil ballard, paul webber, stan haze, and greg arutani. if i've called your name, please come up if you want to speak.

just lineup on the side of the wall. come up. now is your time. >> thank you, my name is greg from the japan town task force. after the adoption and approval of the j.h. s., the land use and transportation committee of j.t. f. began looking at design guidelines for the neighborhood and has enjoyed sort of a hiatus because when we were waiting for these to come through so we're looking forward to the adoption so that the committee can get back to work on what they would like to see within japan town as long as it's following as much as possible the u.d.c. we would have liked to have seen these perhaps before the redevelopment agency put in the malls because that wall along gary boulevard is such an

eyesore and within the community and for the city. it would have been nice to have seen those victoriaance remain as much as possible and have foot traffic on post and gary but in any event, we look forward to these guidelines serving as a way of preventing mass development in japan town. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is stan haze and i am the co-chair of planning and zoning for the telegraph hill dwellers. it's nice to be here today. for a long time we believed that belong-specific guidelines are better tailored to match the unique facts of on the ground and in our neighborhoods. the generic u.d.g. guidelines applied uniformly everywhere in the city, it may not be the best approach. and that's why for a long time we've supported the concept of special area guidelines and it truly collaborative

community-based process for developing them when the communities who are there want them. we're pleased to see them added to the latest u.d.g. draft. we thank you, we thank planning staff, supervisor peskin, we appreciate your indulgence as we've worked through some difficult issues. for some time now we've engage with planning on this proof of concept effort to develop special area guidelines for north beach. we submitted a number of comments back in december. i wanted to focus on a couple of specific items that are bottom lines for us. first, we support stand alone north beach guidelines that do not default back to the u.d.g. and we're very pleased it looks like it's occurring for those in our district. we're looking for guidelines that are really specific to north beach and as a matter of fact, we're even willing to draft them and we're volunteers

and we're volunteering to provide whatever assistance we can to staff as they move forward. the problem we've had is just 10 of the 24 individual guidelines in the u.d.g. are addressed in the north beach guidelines. the rest of them default back to the u.d.g. with unclear and we're afraid intended consequences. which really isn't a theoretical thing because unfortunately we just lost a major building in north beach last saturday to a massive fire. we can see the building, when it's recorrected may very well be subject to these guidelines. second, we support the exclusion of article 10 historic directs from the u.d.g. and we're happy that's the direction in which you are going. thank you. we also would like to see exemptions for districts that are on or eligible for the california or national registers

and perhaps other areas with unique community historical or cultural significance, particularly if they had existing plans already and finally, because it's socom noto complicated u.d.g. and other guidelines that exist that complexity is socom indicated it's important to understand how the inner play of those were working and we urge you to conduct analysis and discussion and public review of exactly how that will occur. even if you adopt it today, we hope you will do that. >> thank you mr. haze. next speaker, please. >> commissioners, my name is john i'm an architect and i'm speaking on behalf of the public policy and advocacy committee of the san francisco chapter of the a.i.a. and i'd like to read a statement from the board of directors in the chapture. commissioners, every two months for the last three years jeff

jocelyn and his team at the planning department have met with the public policy and advocacy committee of the s.f. chapter of the a.i.a. in intensive work shops in debt improving planning department review policies and procedures in the city. the mission of this committee has been to strengthen the constituency for progressive design in the bay area through direct engagement with neighborhood advocacy and legislative bodies. more broadly, we look to effect positive change through education and action related to urban issues impacting the architecture profession in our communities. through this collaboration with planning we've reviewed and commented on draft u.d.g.s and we're pleased to see each of our recommendations were always given thoughtful consideration. for example, our group advocated for the inclusion of a glossary of terms defining elusive architect actual concept and professional jargon as well as the use of the documents and scale proportion and details are

definable professional concepts for designers and architects and those good at their craft learn to control them with skill, thoughtfulness and sensitivity and they can be used in the comparative way to analyze a given context, we we can say pro building is isn't larger than the mass of anna jays enter one. in contrast to these terms are far more subjective such as those who advocate for stylistic beauty. we can agree far more easily that one building seems out of scale with another by looking at the relative sizes it's difficult to say with any objective authority that one building is more beautiful than it's neighbor. there's much we can grow on in our extraordinarily diversity one unifying preferred historical style does not fit all. nor is it good for anna life and evolving city. through greater interaction with the planning department and the process, and i lack of voice in

the process. not all architects practice with the same sensitivity and many projects seem pieced together with a bucket of parts. those of us who practice architecture are drawn to the craft. exactly because it lies between an art and a science. we realize how vexing this can be when trying to pin down rules for design. barring this possibility we'll left with rules of thumb otherwise known as design guidelines. we're encouraged to look at these guidelines and state guideline is a statement by which to determine a course of action that stream lines particular processes according to a set routine or process. by definition, following a guideline is never mandatory issued by organizations. so the a.i.a., s.f. and public policy supports the adoption of the document and we hope it will be approved. >> thank you, very much. >> next speaker, please.

>> sorry i didn't expect that. rose hillson, coalition for san francisco neighborhoods land use committee delegate from jordan park improvement association. i realize now that there have been a few changes since i last saw this document so what i'm about to say may not pertain in full but i'm just going to read it because it's all i wrote. i was here to tell the public that what is happening with the u.d.g. is they orchestrate the future changes to planning code in all their vagueness to violate the code as it is today. now enforcers of the planning code i was wondering why the commission would adopt these things that are illegal today. everyone thinks it's about design but it's really the ideas of the u.d.g.s are crafted to change the future and existing design guidelines and the needs and it needs changes to the

planning code to align with it. so i know that this is a policy document but -- in order to fix the u.d.g.s not following the planning code today, because certain portions of the design guidelines show a yard variance would be needed. if you follow strictly the code with all the changes in the guidelines. and amendments to legit to remedy so people are supposed to go to the supervisors to get ordinance because this is not ordinance, this is just a policy document. the u.d.g.s are actually written as a force of law without the review of law and without having the planning code amendments in hand today, planning stated that the u.d.g.s are supposed to give greater certainty to neighborhoods and you can't make fully informed decisions to pass it today. based on the flaws and illegal u.d.g.s and anything in it

that doesn't follow planning code needs to be rejected or you will have illegally made land use decisions but this is before you made some of these changes and included historic districts and things but, i do know that in the end, anyone who wants something for the districts has to go to the board of supervisors to get any changes in. and that is my whole point is that these are guidelines as policy documents and not ordinance. that's my point. i give you copies of all of these things and here is a copy for the commission. thank you. >> thank you, ms. hillson. >> next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is paul webber. i'm a north beach resident. i am a delegate of telegraph hill dwellers to the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. first of all i'd like to thank mr. rom and mr. jocelyn for their consideration of excluding the historic districts from the

u.d.g.s. and whatever divine intervention might have occurred to bring that about. but i also wanted to mention the history of this discussion. for a number of months now, many of us have been trying to convince the staff to not have a default of the u.d.g.s to the historic districts for two main reasons. number one, the historic districts have five, count them, five sets of control guides now. two federal and three local. they're not in need of other general guidelines on top of that. secondly, the controls at the local level are the product of article 10 and separate for each

of the 12 districts. those are all of course developed from ordinances and to be changed requires a change approved by the board of supervisors. we do not believe as a matter of law that one can just dump on top of that and some guidelines and call on them on the call of the day. we believe if you are going to do it, you've got to go to each and every i believe it would be the winning side of that argument. and none the less, we're pleased and thank the staff very much for giving consideration to excluding the historic district. thank you, very much. thank you. good evening, chris shoal man.

i'd like to thank the staff of the department and i'd like to thank the commissions and supervisor peskin and his staff. the first couple community meetings were challenging and i feel like we're coming to a place that works. i really like to command the staff for the guidelines. we've really learned a lot about kind of planning in our neighborhood and you know, it's been a real journey through polk street with staff and our community members on pacific avenue with north beach and i think the concept of guidelines, i really appreciate the resolution recognizes the special area guidelines and the commitment to future ones. the exclusion of historic districts i think was and and on

behalf and i'm not going to get into details and that will be for another day. and i look forward to returning and getting into more details on how our special area guidelines work for us so thank you so much. thank you. >> next speaker. please. >> good evening, commission. my name is mike robins. i'm also a member of the pack along with john. i came really just to back up the statement that he already presented and i also wanted that our collaboration with the planning department has been valuable. this is something that's started recently and it's really allowed both oboth of our organizationso provide feedback and to work on more streamline processes.

streamline is not the best word for it it's perhaps calibrating requirements with what we do as professionals in the design community and how we deliver design services to your constituents. with this document it's so important that has provided a guideline both for our profession, the architects and also for the planning department and their staff to consistently review projects and a manner that is fair and i think that's the importance of this document we support it very much for that the main department and their staff for their efforts so we support it and thank you very much. >> thank you, very much. any other speakers on this item?

any commissioners. commission richards. >> i'm up here. [laughter] so question i have, i mean, there's a lot of work that has gone into this and i'm fully supportive of it. is this whole issue of illegallality that people brought up like where the r.d.g. approved by the board of supervisors? i mean how -- we use the r.d.g.s all the time, every day, day in and day out but they're not illegal acts. i mean, are they? >> the residential design guidelines are referenced in the code under 311 notice and that would be i think the only way in which when that was changed i would imagine that that was reviewed but not the guideline document. >> the guidelines were not adopted by the board.

just to be clear. early on in the process, these do not change zoning. nothing about the zoning change. it doesn't mean zoning. the guidelines are looked at in light of the design of the project as opposed to the zoning. >> so what is interesting is i mean, i think the way these things got started these guidelines got started was the folks came and said oh my god everything looks like mission bay and i think john king went with a mission bay article in the chronicle but everything looked the same and nothing is really outstanding so that's how these things poke flight and the department ran with them and wanted them to we didn't have control and and i want to say controls and n.c. guidelines and

they fill the question i have i met with of the folks from north beach and i understand why they want to have their area pulled out is because north beach is a special cases and they have a text statement and finished and built upon a context statement from the early 80s or conservation district or something like that so i'm fully support supposing the japan towd 24th street and the mission, et cetera. i guess the question i have for people who were not happy or thrilled with the guidelines is how could they be made any better as a constructive question? i mean, no one wants to say anything? ok. so i'm fully supportive of the recommendation of staff.

>> i'll make a motion to adopt. >> second. >> the revised motion. i'll accept that. >> there go. >> commissioner moore. >> i command staff effort it's one of the most difficult things to do in the profession to do guidelines and there are many aspects about the guidelines and the subtle tee of adding the special area guidelines and the attempt to work with the residential guidelines as a strong foundation for expanding on guidelines and dealing with them in a manner that they have already partially been partially codified. they are all great ideas. the urban design guidelines themselves are something which i will not support today. there's a reason for