relationship to the street and the sidewalk and consistently found buildings that are light in color through the use of terra cotta and consistent materials. what we saw, we found a transitional attitude that defines upper floors and lower floors. in approximate an attempt to stitch this building back into the context specifically to its neighbors, we mapped the street height -- or excuse me, the storefront scale on stockton and open farre'farrell on our to identify the lower floors and the upper floors. what's more is we're a corner property, and so we lifted the corner to acknowledge that. we also acknowledge union square with a further sort of lift in articulation of the architecture. to inform the scale of that move, we looked at -- we looked to the historical blade signs as a subtle gesture for a

conte contextual scale move. so this is what it means to turn this building inside out, a street level that's activated with retail, both on stockton-o'farrell. o'farrell is going to be transformed with the architecture along the base here. and what's more that transitional floor is a visual cue to let folks now in the community that the retail is active. there's something to do and it supports that approach. as we move away, this is a view up stockton to see it in context. as we start to move closer, you start to get a sense for scale. we worked with arc to work out the details of the components of the storefront. in the storefront, you can see our use of terra cotta. we're building a storefront back to the use of this material. as you can see we've generated a texture and a digital pattern to be traditionally crafted, to

be hand built and really create something beautiful for the district. and those storefronts are activated both on stockton and o'farrell with multiple tenants, and we're supporting the upper level retail through ground floor presence with the upper floor retail tenants. this is a view of the new o'farrell street elevation, fully activated with retail again. the third floor is articulated across the length. again, with the idea of supporting that retail and upper level. the roof is seen as a great opportunity. on the left is what we have today. on the right we're proposing a whole new experience, a new destination for union square and the city. so i'm really excited to share our collective vision for this project. myself and my colleagues are here for any questions you may have. thank you. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. do you want to -- >> one more note is we actually

have v.r. goggles with a rooftop experience. if you're ready to partake, we're ready to share. >> president hillis: thank you. we'll open this up for public comment. i don't have any speaker cards. miss flood, go ahead, and anybody else who'd like to speak, please lineup on this side of the room. >> good afternoon again, commissioners. kara flood, executive director, union square bid here to speak in support of this project. they came to our committee, and super excited about the design. as you heard, the design right now is not particularly interesting. and the reason this is even an opportunity for them is because retail is shrinking. in union square, the stores are consolidating, everything is becoming smaller, much smaller floor plates, and they're still proposing to have exciting retail opportunities on five floors. that's really key. it's already office, you know, as i said on the sixth and seventh floor.

so i don't think this is a major change. i think this'll really activate this area. this of course is where the subway, the new subway's going to open up onto. this is a really busy, business he street. we're really excited with it. we are just highly sensitive to construction construction, so i would hope they're highly communica communicative about the construction. just real quick on the c 3 r, we are actually going to be quite engaged in the process to try to help you all and work with oewd and planning on what should the mix be, especially on the second and third floors. we've been asked to do a study now with oewd to figure out what exists on those two floors right now, what are the vacancy rates on those floors, what are the uses up there, because again, it's -- you know, rent drop off on the second floor. ground floor commands high rents but up on the second and above, way lower.

so then office becomes much more attractive, and if those spaces aren't connected, it doesn't make sense necessarily to have a retail. there aren't department stores that are coming, they're shrinking. we look forward to working in the process. we don't look for a moratorium that's going to stall these projects. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you, miss flood. next speaker, please. >> my name is stan cohn from bridge real estate advisors, but really on behalf of neiman marcus. i've been a long time advisor of neimans, and we were very concerned about what was going to take shape next door. ultimately it went to the board, and we submitted a letter of support, and we continue to support the project. it happens that as an advisor, i've worked with the city on various things, including the palace of fine arts, but

directly across the street where crate and bare el rel wa located. that store far exceeded what the department store was doing. also represent a number of buildings on o'farrell and stockton our family owned 240 stockton street, where gucci is, where bali used to be. i'm a fifth generation san franciscan and very committed to seeing that the landscape is preserved and in this case, improved. >> president hillis: thank you, mr. cohn. next speaker, please, miss

hester. there it is. >> sue hester, tenant of the building since 1980. you've had two projects in my neighborhood. i don't have any problem with a conversion of their use of the building, but i want to add a couple conditions to the office allocation. i'm a cynic, i'm a realist. i've been around the bench a long time. when you have a project that has this kind of an office allocation, and it's 499 -- 49,999 square feet, if they go over it 1 foot, they need a different allocation. there's a lot of temptation here. there's a temptation to take this space, there's a

temptation to take other spaces, so in the interests of honesty and doing things right and getting maximum amount of funding for housing and other fundings that we need for the city, i ask you to put on a condition on the office allocations. one, when the permit for building this project comes through, the planning department routinely signs off at the first end -- front end. before the final allocation -- before the final issuance of the permit for construction, it should come back to planning department to check the plans because building department doesn't always follow the same sensitivities that planning does. they have plus and minus 20 feet. the other thing is that second condition, is it every single

alteration permit, tenant k3wr06789 permit be routed to planning department, period, for plan review. like i said, i'm a real cynic because i have a lot of experience in the city. there's a lot of -- i just want to remind you of your hearing two weeks ago when you had the joint building and planning commission. there's a lot of places for things to fall through the cracks. if they're going to sneak up to be a major location, they should get it from the planning department, and you -- the public should get the fees. so in light of this design, it's not a full floor, and the temptation is really going to be there. specifically, you need to get a lot of rent for tech offices these days, so please add two meaningful conditions to the office allocation.

thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you, miss hester. any additional public comment on this item? seeing none, we'll close public comment. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: it's amazing to see this project being so sensibly teed off. i am so happy that the conversations that we've had have been heeded, and i think that not only from the presentation that miss c 5 talana did, but gensler digs deep to do something that i fully support and i'm very happy about. i think the project on this corner will breathe some additional life into this building that has been breathing heavy for quite sometime, given the stockton street has been so heavily impacted by the extension of the central subway. at the same time, i hope -- and gensler has enough experience in large scale, that the construction of this building which will be disruptive to further add to some form of

obstruction in that corridor will be done in a manner that it minimally impacts the rest of the functioning and the revitalization of the street. i believe we discussed it in our own deliberations that the decline of activity on that street had a lot to do with how the central subway was handled, which was highly disruptive and made it an extremely uncomfortable state to shop and despite the stores we all love to shop and support, such as neiman marcus, just to pick one name here. i think in -- that the interim controls that come from supervisor peskin's office are sensitive. i think they somehow build on the additional conditions that miss hester is asking us for, and i strongly support that we continue to understand projects like this in the context of interim controls and hopefully

ultimately sense it before permanent controls. the one issue i would like to ask, and i do not have any metrics, and i do not even know how to express them, has something to do with a disruption factor to any adaptive we use and that is in construction and how construction phasing is handled, and i would like sensitivity to that subject because as we are overlaying over some of the c 3 larger buildings, possibility -- and i'm going to make that with a capital "p" for introducing additional office. i want to make sure that the disruption which arises from that, in a really council member chaotic downtown is not going to further prolong and exacerbate an already difficult situation. trying to cross market street, trying to dodge all of the things we've had to deal with every day has become a real hassle and has driven be many people to go to amazon and order on-line, and we need to

find a way that transforming the city, which i think we need to do is not being done at the expense to not paying a lot of attention to that aspect of how we build and transform. i am in support of this project. i think it's well done, and i move to approve it with conditions in -- in addition to comments on interim controls to be observed or being taken into consideration and some of the things that miss hester indicated, which believe are more policy and should help us to stay on top of this. >> second. >> president hillis: director? >> thanks. a couple of things. commissioners, we are indeed -- as miss flood mentioned, we are working with oewd on trying to understand better when's happening on the upper floors, particularly the second and third floors, and we're trying to fund a little study that would literally let us do a study to help us understand

what's on the second and third floors. for the conditions of approval, i think for a project of this size it would typically get routed back to the department before permits are issued. that's standard procedure. the t.i. is a little different, and i'm a little concerned with that only because if it lasts into perpetuity, you would get changes that are minor on exterior interior of buildings, so i'm a little cautious about that. i would -- there may be some threshold or something but i'm a little cautious about requiring that every tenant in perpetuity come back to us every time there's an interior tenant improvement. that doesn't seem reasonable, so i just want to put that out there. >> president hillis: it could just possibly be on those floors, six and seven, because i don't think we need to hear every tenant improvement. >> yeah, and just to be clear, the office fees are paid

whether it's 49,000 feet or a million square feet, so the fees would be paid in any case. >> president hillis: and just a question on the 49 -- right, the 49,999, this is obviously being engineered to come under the small cap. i mean, it does leave that kind of awkward spot on the sixth floor to be retail. >> right. >> president hillis: what's the ramification of adding that -- >> they would have to come back to and request the space out of the small cap -- excuse me out of the large cap, even if it was only 5,000 square feet because it would take it above 50 total. >> president hillis: right, but the process would have been the same, but we're just not here -- we're here under the small cap. >> that's correct. >> president hillis: i, too, am in support. i echo commissioner moore's comments. this'll be an interesting test case to see what will happen on the fourth floor. the project sponsors are certainly adept at retail and

have certainly designed the first couple floors to work well, although i still have questions about whether the fourth and fifth will have viable retail in them, so this will be a good one to kind of look at as we model or retail policies. i agree with supervisor peskin's office and mr. hepner on you're asking for the same things we've been asking for on kind of what's out there as far as retail and office and vacancies, so that data will be good to get and evaluate every time we have these projects. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: just one question for the project sponsor. how close are you to getting your building permit? >> so we have not filed yet, but we expect to get it in the january range at the latest. the idea and the timing is as soon as macy's moved out, we will get our permit. the only difficulty is. >> commissioner richards: so we will have it with the interim controls.

>> the only problem is you have to have 18 months of vacancy, and with the permitting, i don't think you can get there. >> president hillis: i think the difficulty we've had with the sixth and seventh floors, so perhaps the interim controls can be fashioned that a project like this that has planning commission approval to move forward, but that's a policy call of the board. this is a great design. it's clearly not something that's going to be cheap to do, and i think the project sponsors are very committed to retail on floors where we haven't seen commitment to retail, so i'm sure that will be something you discuss as this moved through the process for interim controls, and hopefully this doesn't get kind of caught up in that. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: i think there's a positive shout out also for the treatment of the roof to animate the roof, just as a destination for other use, i think, is a great idea. >> clerk: commissioners, just for -- commissioner moore, for clarity, your reference to include the acknowledgement of the interim controls as a

condition of approval, was that in -- intent to receive the data requested from the interim controls? i was not clear. >> commissioner moore: i am a little bit out of my league here. i just want the tick mark that interim controls are an important discussion point in this as to whether or not the timing, etcetera, coincides with this. i really feel that director rahaim pleading for us and taking notes that it is really flagging the importance on all future discussions for it being an important ingredient. >> my understanding was you don't want that necessarily as a condition. >> clerk: maybe we incorporate it as a finding? >> commissioner moore: as a finding. >> clerk: acknowledging the

interim controls. >> commissioner moore: thank you so much for pushing back on that. >> clerk: thank you very much, commissioner. and is the president okay with that? >> yes richard richards so the interim controls came out of the genesis of the discussion that we had here? we, the organizations and department's requesting interim controls with the supervisor's office yet we're putting forward a project. i think if we approve this project, maybe there's some type of, you know, carve out or at least some -- something for this project as to whether they actually meet those interim controls or not, and we'll make that determination to the supervisor's office. >> again, lee hepner from supervisor peskin's office. again we have to be careful to what or whatnot to say about a cu that may come before the board. i'm happy to connect with the project sponsor and discuss possibilities going forward.

>> commissioner richards: that's a great suggestion. >> president hillis: yeah. >> clerk: commissioners, there's a motion, then, that has been seconded to approve this matter with conditions as has been amended to acknowledge the interim controls as a finding and to condition that planning review for the final office square footage, including future tenant improvements on floors containing office, which would be floors six and seven. on that motion -- [ roll call. ] >> clerk: so moved, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously, 6-0. >> president hillis: all right, and jonas before we hear the great polk street whole food debate, we're going to take a break for ten minutes, and we'll be back. >> clerk: regular hearing for thursday, august -- excuse me,

august. april 26, 2018. i would like to remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. please silence your mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings and when speaking before the commission, if you care to, do state your name for the record. commissioners, we have one last item on your agenda today. item number 21. [agenda item read]. >> clerk: for the benefit of the public, the commission has acknowledged organized opposition, and public comment will be limited to two minutes perspeaker. >> good afternoon or evening, excuse me. president hillis and member of the planning commission. nick foster, planning department staff. this request for you is a conditional use authorization for 365 doing business as whole

foo food market. the project would include both interior and exterior tenant improvements containing 43,898 gross square feet with no expansion proposed. the proposed general grocery store would occupy the entirety of the existing structure with grocery retail sales areas located on both the first and second floors, an area dedicated to the prepared foods for on or off-site consumption located on the first floor, a seating area located on the second floor, and being assessory office space for use by whole foods staff located on the second floor. subject property has been vacant since december of 2014 when lombardi's sports ceased operations. the proposed project does not constitute a change of use as it is considered proposed retail sales and service use under the planning code. further it's listed as a principlely permitted use within the polk street

commercial neighborhood district pursuant to planning code section 13-323. adding class 1 and class 2 bicycle parking spaces in the amounts required percurrent code. that equates to six class one spaces and 16 class two spaces on both the jackson and polk street frontages. while the existing been contained one off street loading area, the proposed project would utilize on street loading to accommodate larger trucks, therefore extending the existing loading zone along jackson street to 100 feet. in consideration of loading issues, the project sponsor has prepared a transportation management plan for the proposed grocery store. this includes detailed

instructions on the loading operations, required sf mta approvals, loading operations and scheduling, parking program, educational program, and transportation demand measurement measures. the tmp was informed by a lead loading analysis by the project. it is listed as a condition of aful pro, number 14, in your draft motion before you. to date the department has received 155 letters in support of the proposed project and 50 letters in opposition to the proposed project. several of the letters did not make the packet publication deadline, and jonas just graciously extended those to you, as well. feedback has been quite mixed with numerous area residents does have commented about their support for the project i

already mentioned the tmp as having been included as a condition of approval. the project sponsor's agreed to a one year report back as condition number 22 in your draft motion. a similar report back was considered for the whole foods project on delores street a few years back. on the whole, the department finds the project to be necessary and desirable for the community for the following reasons. the project will activate a vacant lighted commercial storefront and help induce pedestrian traffic into the area, the project would introduce a general grocery store at the polk street corridor. general grocery stores are considered daily need retail uses and are supported by the commerce industry general plan, it would also support the general plan by creating 100 new jobs. although the proposed project involves a formula retail

use -- [ inaudible ] >> the project would include street skraep improvements along both of the jackson street and polk frontages including 16 class 2 bicycle spaces, the project space is well served by public transit and the project does meet all the applicable requirements of the planning code. that concludes my presentation. i'm obviously available for questions and one of myestreemd colleagumyestreemd -- -- my steemd colleague froms -- colleagues from the

environmental department is available if you have any questions. >> you'll hear today from president of the northern california region for whole foods, who will tell you more will the role that the store seek to see have in the community and about 365's mission and how that's distinction from whole foods and whole foods stores. the president of 365 is here today, present for questions. given the ten minutes, ae nhe't going to present, but he's happy to answer any questions. we want to address housing at this hearing. it's really not a viable possibility for this project. we're not looking at a grocery store versus housing here, we're looking at housing versus a vacant site, and so we have the owner here today, rob isaacson who will discuss the economics of the site as part of the presentation. we have the architecture team

and the transportation consultant who are also here to answer any questions, and and i thank you for your time, and i'll hand it over to rob tweiman. >> good evening. thank you, president hillis, commissioners and staff. we began this journey over two and a half years ago in 2015, and at that time we made a commitment to the community that we would listen and we would respond to their hopes, concerns and desires, and work to be the best community partners possible. since then, we've had nine meetings with the community, form skbral and informal. we've met personally with the board members representing condo associations and neighborhood organizations, and in our communities, we've heard the voices of small business owner. i'm a former small business owner of san francisco myself, and i'm keenly aware of local merchants in the neighborhood. we've offered to give up entier

categories of our business to support them in leveraging the incremental business we feel sure whole foods will bring to this neighborhood. whole foods market has been in san francisco for over 20 years, and the bay area for almost 30. there are many examples of specialty grocers with mom and pop stores. buy rite on 18th, just a four minute walk from a market street store. go there on a saturday, and i think you'll see that they continue to thrive. jackson liquors in lafayette, are in the same lot, and gaba foods continues to provide eye unique shopping experience for their customers and ours. and countless farmers markets across the country intentionally locate their sites close to whole foods

because they know, they understand that we bring like minded foodies to the neighborhood. these are all examples of specialty grocers that understand that whole foods market is an anchor that brings new business to neighborhoods and because they dive deeper into specialty categories than we do, they can leverage those additional customers. from the community, we also heard that they wanted additional community space, so we greed to provide additional spa space. we've offered to host merchant meetings once we've opened to discuss ways with he can work together to increase foot frasks and look for synergies so we can grow our business together. there is no advantage to being in a community where we're not wanted, and believe me, if at any time i felt that were the

case, i would have pulled the plug on this long ago. but we've heard from most impacted by this in the neighborhood over and over again, that they want a viable full scale grocery store and a consistent majority have expressed that they want whole foods market to be that grocer. gro if approved, the corner of polk and jackson can be integrated within a year. an alternate use will leave this space vacant for several more years, requiring demolition of the existing foundation and shell, and eliminate the possibility of a full scale grocery store, and by the way, it doesn't pencil out. as an employer, whole foods has

been on fortune 500's top places to work for 20 years. we expect to hire more than 70% of our team members directly from this community. the other 25% will likely come from existing san francisco stores. we currently pay $1.50 above the mandated minimum wage and have one of the highest full-time to part-time ratios in the industry at over 70% full-time here in san francisco. so you might ask, why would a business do all this when it's not required to? because we plan on being here for a very long time. we know from experience having been in san francisco for 20-plus years, that this means building solid, long-term relationships and being a strong community partner. in my time with whole foods market, i've led merchant and neighborhood organizations. i currently sit on the advisory board for primed and prep, a

nonprofit based in supervisor cohen's district that teaches at risk youth krcullinary skil. we are not some suits from texas or seattle. i and my regional team are active in the regions in which we have stores and even those we do not, because we believe that food markets build communities in the same ways they have for centuries. that's why i've worked for whole foods market for 25 years. lastly on a personal level, i'll say this: i met some amazing people in the neighborhood since we began this process, many of whom you'll hear from today. in a world that's become more divisive these last couple of years, they don't listen to each other, i believe the community partner has demonstrated a solid track record of listening and responding that is offering to

provide a community marketplace where those people can come together is a pretty good idea, and these amazing neighbors deserve it. so i ask you to vote yes on whole foods 365. thank you for your time and consideration. >> president hillis: thank you. is that... >> good afternoon, planning commissioners. my name is rob isaacson, and i'm with the ownership. i represent village properties. we've been doing business here in san francisco since the late 1980's and have been involved in countless, over 20 projects. it's come to my attention our c.u.p. application here today has morphed from a chain store formula retail issue to somewhat of a housing issue. so as a result, i'd like to address this issue and provide you with some background and knowledge of our company and

our housing market knowledge. this is a project that is -- >> president hillis: just flip that 90°. there you go. thank you. >> thank you. this is a project on. >> commissioner hayes-white: a -- hayes and laguna. it's a mixed use project entirely on the ground floor on the east end of hayes street. this is another mixed use project. it's a restaurant and was completed about eight years ago. this is a 13 story building that was just finished completion, it's 67 units with ground floor retail on the corner of post and franklin, and it was a redevelopment

project. there was a project where we took a vacant coliseum movie theater, put in walgreens on the ground floor and in the loft, hollowed out the loft and put residences inside. this was a project we did basically for free with a nonprofit developer in southern california. some loft projects back when lofts were happening. i can show you countless projects. this is -- and this is another project, another one in hayes valley that was done before there were any mixed use

projects. >> president hillis: mr. isaacson, your time is done. if you want to take a little time working

with small businesses, and working with the developers in planning the type of neighborhood that we want to have. now i don't want have to tell you that san francisco's the middle of an extraordinary housing crisis, but next to the mission, our neighborhood has the highest number of evictions, so there is an absolute need not only for housing, but housing here, and what our neighborhood needs is housing. this project is counter to mayor ed lee's housing initiative and has countered everything our neighborhood has been working for the last couple years, which is why our coalition of organizations that oppose the project representing the thousands of residents in the area are advocating for housing over retail. i just want to quickly go over some of the graphics that we submitted in the packet.

this one just shows here that there's surrounding k4r5i78, t claim, the 1500 jackson, is not served well with a grocery store. this next grafrk can just show you there's more north of the location, and all within walking distance, and if you have a car, there's a whole foods a short way away, a safeway, and a trader joe's just north of the location. next image is going to show you the incompatibility of the project with polk street. this conflicts with the southbound green bike lane, but also will slow down service to the 19 polk muni bus and cars

cueing up to get in and out of this garage. next, i want to show you how on this -- some of the images on the location of the surrounding neighborhood, both directly across from 1600 jackson, end block, and along polk and pacific. it shows a very livly mixed use that we envision for the site of 1600 jackson. of course it's retail with housing above: a. and lastly, i want to show you one of my favorite slides which is a great example of housing with retail on the bottom, or locations of other whole foods within the city. many of the other locations are served with form lula retail wh housing above, which is what we would like to see. and so each organization that's opposed to this project is united is saying that housing

over retail is the best use for this site. and quite frankly we are running out of parking lots in san francisco to build housing in the city. we start looking at under utilized properties as opportunities for housing. we're trying to set a different narrative here in san francisco that we can all work to build housing for all, prechbs displacement and enhance our neighborhood simultaneously. we can't build housing on-sites like 1600 jackson where no residents or businesses are being displaced if we're going to have a very difficult time in trying to fight back against sacramento in playing a larger role in our land use decisions. and lastly, our organization has spoken with several experienced san francisco developers we have worked with in the past who have all said that this is a great site for mixed use housing and given the economics, the zoning and the potential density snenstives, they would buy the site and hold housing there -- build

housing there until it would come on the market, so i urge you to deny this c.u. >> hello. my name is carter austin. this is my son archer. i'm here representing the polk district merchant association. i stand here today in front of you in two aspects, one representing the polk disrepresenting over 60 different merchants, and two as living in the polk neighborhood. i love this city, and one of the things that i love most about san francisco is the fact that you can walk two or three blocks and be in ifa completel different neighborhood with a completely different feel. the reason is because of the small merchants and the respect and dedication that the city

has to develop those small merchants. they have something that keeps tourists and locals coming back year after year, day after day. my wife and i spend our weekends walking on polk, and when we stop to eat with our son at nick's crispy taco's, if you know the secretary, you can get into swan's oyster bar. you can grab beer and wine at the jug shop on your way home, or you can stop and get some local tea at tea spoon. one of my wife's favorite stores that we always have to check out when we leave is picnic on polk because it's got a unique flair all its own. the point i'm trying to make is polk isn't just a street that i work on. it's a community that i feel i've become a deep part of, because i know all the small business owners, and they know me and my family. whole foods amazon on polk doesn't fit with polk is.

they don't even come close to what the spirit of polk is. amazon wants to put lockers in whole foods which will put them in competition with every small business on polk. if that happens, you won't be facing one empty storefront on polk, you'll be facing block after block of empty storefront, because who in their right mind would want to open right next door to a whole foods amazon. we need to take the opportunity that has been given to us for building housing at that location. it allows everyone a chance to move to polk and experience what i'm so honored to experience every day. there have been two developers who have shown interest in turning that location into housing. i ask for you to please not to allow amazon whole foods to move in on polk and to say yes to preserving one of san francisco's unique neighbors and yes to housing.

-- unique neighborhoods and yes to housing. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is tim mclaughlin, i'm representative with the united food and workers union here in san francisco. we are a labor union that represents nearly 4,000 members in san francisco in the grocery and drug industry. we are in opposition to the whole foods coming into the location at polk and jackson streets. we have a small family business that is a signatory with us that has been in operation since 1965 that would be heavily impacted if a whole foods would be allowed to go into this location. we also have a drugstore whose members we represent who could be impacted if potential layoffs result. it would be better for the neighborhood that would benefit from a smaller store footprint

that would pay better wages for its employees for part-time and full-time. furthermore this location is ideal for housing and we believe that would be the best use for the neighborhood and for san francisco. thank you for your time. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. so we will open this up for public comment. i've got a bunch of speaker cards. i'll call some names. if you'll lineup on the screen side of the room, that would be helpful, and we'll have two minutes for commenters. joshua, paul, chris, rebecca, ray, teresa, michael, henry, and diane. and you all can approach in any order. welcome. you need the overhead? >> please. >> president hillis: all right. go ahead. it'll come up. >> good afternoon. joshua devoer on behalf of tony vargas. we've submitted two letters to

the commission. one on the 18th, and one yesterday. i apologize for the lateness. you've heard a lot maybe about why you should or should not approve this, but let me tell you why you cannot approve this. that's because it violated both california and san francisco law. in order to move ahead with the project, the project sponsor has avoided any sort of i environmental inquiry. they've asked for a class 32 exemption exemption. as you should know, that requires a -- [ inaudible ] >> -- that were violated, the most significant of which is the one that is completely absent from the notice of hearing which is the intent to take 100 feet of jackson street for private use, they intend to convert five parking spaces to a loading zone because their loading zone in the building is deficient. because i've only got a short amount of time, let me move onto the supplemental that we

put in yesterday. the planning staff has indicated that that deficiency is legal for existing use. we've laid out why that's not true. that use was abandoned december of 2014. it's been more than three years, so even if that was a legal deficiency, it cannot be approved under the existing rules. and finally, since i only have 30 seconds, let me show you what they've laid out in their truck management plan because they've only analyzed three truck turns at the corner of jackson and polk. they know that one-third of the turns are not possible for the large trucks they're going to use, so instead they appropriates an alternate truck route. in their transportation management plan, they say we can just send the truck up largan street southbound because it's one way. well, it's not. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. mr. david.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. todd davis on behalf of the san francisco housing action coalition. so i think this is the exact project where the rubber meets the road in everything that we've been talking about for the last kind of six months here, all right? the cost of building housing when you add all of them together, construction, labor, cost of financing, bmr costs, impact fees, that's the reason we're not getting housing on this site. the developer is a developer who does mixed use developments. this is a perfect location for housing. the neighborhood wants it. the developer wants it. the project does not pencil, and this is what -- i mean, when we're talking about -- this is a self-inflicted wound by the city and county of san francisco that we're not getting housing here. that i don't know about these other developers who are saying that the project's can pencil. i'd be really curious to talk to them. i can tell you that my members

are telling me that there are projects all the time in san francisco right now that will not pencil. and so, you know, as an organization, we have no opinion on whole foods versus, you know, retail. that's what i am so frustrated with is this missed opportunity. we have a neighborhood that wants housing, a developer that builds housing, and we have a project that does not pencil out, and this is because of prop -- because of policies that our elected officials have put into place. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. mr. webber? >> good afternoon. i'm here on behalf of telegraph hill dwellers to oppose the c.u. being sought to create a whole foods store on the lombardi site, and with respect to historical issues, i just wanted to mention one thing. according to google aerlth, the drive time between the lombardi site and the franklin site is

three minutes. so what public policy is being served by pairing up two related high end food halls located within three minutes of earth other. that certainly does not sound as if it's fulfilling a compelling need, but what is a compelling need is housing, including affordable housing. the lombardi site would be perfect fore a multifamily housing site. the location is convenient to multitransit site, and secondly, within a two or three block radius is a complete and ready built infrastructure of neighborhood shops and services, including groceries, a variable united nations of restaurants and beverages, clothing stores, flower shops, and then, there's bob's doughnuts. further -- pardon me.

that is -- to create this housing, there's no need to evict tenants or to demolish housing because there isn't any. the housing would probably be eligible for san francisco or state density bonus programs. 827 is not behind us. it's only been deferred. accordingly, so how is it going to look if our commission approves a development of a high end market whose sister location is but three minutes away, and which will contribute to ever worsening traffic and turn down the opportunity to build affordable housing? that would sound like, to me, to be right up there as exhibit a with the evidence that the state is right and needs to take control. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. miss clark. >> hi. barb clark. it's uncomfortable for me to be on the same side as people who are talking about parking, so i'm very pleased that we're talking about having a loading

zone instead of some parking spaces. that's a much more efficient use of our public roads. but i think that we do need to take a critical eye at this and say why aren't we seeing a proposal for housing here, and i think todd laid it out pretty clearly. there are financial reasons. the developer who is experienced at building housing, looked at the options and decided that it would be easier and less expensive -- they didn't want to face the process of coming through you all in order to get their permits for housing, and they gave up, and that is where the rubber meets the road as far as our housing policies causing us to lose units. and if everyone here who is opposed tost who the whole foo willing to contribute financially and to pledge to build housing there and to sign up to come out for every hearing that that project would need to get through our entitlement process, i bet the

developer would be proposing housing at this site. but we're not going to see that unless you guys are dedicated to saying okay, let's see housing at this site, that means we're going to have to make sure that they probably get grandfathered in at an old incollusionary rate. are you going to lower their fees? are you going to make sure they get a density bonus? are you going to make sure that they're buy rite and they get through the process with all speed and haste and that they're not facing the risk associated with trying to get housing permits. if you are willing to do everything that's possible to get housing built on this site, then sure, reject the c.u., but don't let the site sit vacant for another five, ten years until we're through this cycle and we're onto the next one. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. thank you. my name is miriam zouzounis.

my family has a small grocery store, and i'm here speaking on behalf of the arab american grocers association. we represent a large majority of the corner grocery stores in the city, and i can tell you if we're talking about vacancy and blight and commercial corridors, this is happening at a rapid rate with our corner grocers, and i can tell you i've spoken to some members on the vanness corridor and polk corridor, but formula retailers that can buy bulk, cumulatively and actively put pressure on distributors to not sell to the independent guys is one of the main forces driving us out of the city. these -- this commercial corridor buys locally and sells locally. we have a shared economy. you know, i work in imports, too, and they -- you know, the joke shop sells stuff that we bring in, and i think that that

kind of process is not accessible for a corporate enterprise, let alone the on-line dimension of retail, which this city has not really finalized any kind of equal application of the laws that are on brick and mortar businesses with on-line retail regulations. so whether it's, like, banning certain inventory or just the kind of taxes we pay, those are never -- those are not equally applied to on-line retail, and i think that needs to be considered before we start looking at these types of formula retailers coming in, so thank you. >> president hillis: thank you, miss zouzounis. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commission. i'm the president of the san francisco council of district merchants associations. there are times when formula retailers are good, there are times where it's not. as you can see in the overhead

here, the proposed 365 is very close to another whole foods, the golden vichi, trader joe's, the bazaar at polk, not to mention a bunch of little small grocery stores that are around. but what this can cause by allowing this, is consistent with more vacancies, so by seeing this, the smaller grocery stores won't be able to compete because people going over to this 365 market. we are tea going to see more blight, also. i just think that at this stage of the game, if it was not these other grocery stores, i can see okay, maybe that's fair enough. we should have a 365 in that location, but we have so many of them there already. and so i think there's, you know, there's an abundance of them, and i would encourage you

not to approve the c.u. thank you. >> president hillis: all right. thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is elaine tansen, and i am a resident who has lived next to the proposed site for 40 years. i am strongly opposed to this store because of its likely impacts on traffic in the neighborhood. i'm very skeptical of the conclusions in the traffic report about the traffic problems at the proposed store site. both the traffic engineering firm that prepared this report and the traffic department omitted a major bus line that runs west on jackson street parallel to where delivery trucks will travel and the loading activities will occur. this bus is the 27 line which stops on polk and jackson. apparently when the traffic engineers observed trucks turning at the store site, they didn't notice that this bus runs next to where the loading

activities will occur. in addition, neither they nor the traffic planner checked with muni to confirm all the bus lines which run adjacent to the store site. in addition, i think that the plan to abate so called vehicle cues which could occur while cars lineup to enter the parking garage on polk street won't work. this plan says that if reoccurring vehicle cues occur at the garage, the planning department will notify the owner in writing, and the owner will hire a transportation consultant to evaluate these conditions. this consultant will then submit this report to the planning department and will give the store owner 90 days to abite these cues. however this report lacks information about what the store owner could do to prevent cars cueing at the garage. it is almost certain that these car cues will occur because -- during busy shopping times and will slow buses and could even cause bicycle accidents. in conclusion because of the severity of traffic congestion in san francisco andau