francis francisco. we're losing our communities. and yes, we heard numerous times that there's some legislation here that you might not have the authority to add on or put into this plan as planning commissions, but you do have the full -- the vote to continue it so we could continue working to fix this. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please, mr. wu. >> hello, commissioners. david wu with the south of market community action network. i wanted to continue with some measures that we've been proposing that are seriously needed to address displacement and community concerns that are contained in the letter that was just submitted to you, again, signed on by 17 organizations against the city. we demand strong measures be adopted in the central soma plan to support job creation

for local residents for development under the central soma plan to be accountable and equitiable, residents must be employed with fair wages and working conditions. one, for all residential development more than ten units and all commercial development over 25,000 square feet require the developer to provide a community good jobs employment plan for public review and comment prior to consideration of project approval by the planning department that details the goals of all the permanent jobs within the future development for hiring south of market and central city residents, especially disadvantaged persons at good living wages with benefits and that details how those goals will be reached. unless the following community accountability targets are met, as will be outlined in one second, hotels should be excluded from the central soma plan. these targets include targeted

hiring for end use jobs with employers committing to hiring targets for vulnerable residents of central soma and the region, intention in promotion with employers committing to prevention and promotion targets, workforce development where worker fee will support workforce programs. and living wages, stable schedules and fair working conditions where employers shall pay living wages, provide fair work schedules and respect employees rights to form a union by signing a card check knew electricality agreement with the residents and unions. adopting the above recommendations is a minimum necessary step towards stablizing and protecting the existing community in the south of market, especially those who are must vulnerable to

displacement. as such, we urge you to adopt these recommendations before your final approval of all of the plan. all these demanding musting met to address the very real displacement pressures that will come with this plan. these demands must be met to sustain this plan. the planning commission, i urge you, should not adopt the plan today and the adoption hearing should be continued to allow for more time for this confusing component of the plan and for more time to allow understand and impact the displacement and gentrification that will come with it. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, espla. >> good evening. my name is diane ruiz. with the central soma plan, the city had the chance to address the advanced gentrification of

central soma. instead of plan with its complete lack of strategies to address displacement impacts and its huge imbalance of jobs and housing will turn up the gentrification and displacement to warp speedment the city has a moral impairment -- [inaudible] >> you as planning commissioners need to direct the board of supervisors to do so. yob how many times i've heard this planning commission and the city say we need more housing to relieve the pressure of the increased population coming for the jobs. while i don't believe in increasing supply of luxury housing to deal with this problem, i do believe in addressing the demand and the central soma plan will create unprecedented demand through the whole city. soma is one of the few areas in the city where we can build and we should be building there new affordable housing and

aggressively acquiring land to do so. we should also be buying as many rent controlled buildings as we can. in order to pay for this, we should be capturing the billions in added land value given to landowners and developers and taxing the corporations who want to locate in 94103, some of which are the most profitable in the history of the world. we should be using the central soma plan to address the raise in class and equality in the city and meet the needs of the existing community. instead of digging us out of the hole we're in, the central soma plan will ensure we will never see the light of day. streamlining approvals is not the solution, but this was proposed so soon after the board of supervisors rejected the state bill sb 827 is crazy. there's already rampant building in soma. up zoning small parcels of land on the west side where it's already built out means demolition and displacement, so

i don't like where that conversation is going, but this will be a justification to increase gent refication displacement in other areas which are vulnerable and do experience evictions. now is the time to address inequality in the city. >> president hillis: thank you, miss ruiz. >> sue hester. i would like to support what somcan just was talking about. there is a community existing in the south of market, and they're being ignored in this plan, in legislation because number h, h as in hester is a housing sustainability district, and that was just

provided a week ago, and this is the first hearing. i'm going to devote all my time to talking about this. one of the things that is missing is the concept of notice, n-o-t-i-c-e, notice. that is one of the short comings in the eastern neighborhoods plan because it eliminates all environmental notices. planning gives the best notices for two project -- two categories: environmental notice, because environmental notices go to tenants, t-e-n-a-n-t-s. 311, 312 notices which don't

exist south of market because they are designed for our districts. so those go to tenants and to homeowners, occupants, and unless you have supervision in this expedited process for housing, there will be no notice for anyone. you have all kinds of timelines and you have no notice requirements in there. this legislation has all kinds of you get this, you get this, you get this. what notice is there to the people who live there, especially people who live in the residential areas that you just heard from somcan? i asked -- i challenge mr. wertheim to come up here and tell me, tell you, what notice is given to anything in the

south of market when there is no environmental view, there is no notice. when everything is expedited, there is no notice. we're going to have a lot of projects that will go through and pardon me, i don't really have a lot of faith in the planning department staff to understand if there's tenants in it a property. too often, i know from reading plans, there are tenants, and the planner has no idea there would be tenant displacement, and so they're not even asking the questions. so until you really understand what notice is given, you don't have a plan that's worth approving ever. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you, miss hester. next speaker, please. >> good evening. christina lombach.

i'm just following up on mr. vetles testimony and just turn in some documentation. and also i wanted to say thank you. we're a family that's been in san francisco for almost 100 years, and we're trying to build a family residential tower, residential homes, rental homes, not luxury condominiums for real people, for real families that can live in san francisco and use our wonderful community facilities, be part of san francisco. and we wanted to thank mr. wertheim, the director, the commissioners. this must be a thankless, thankless job to sit here day in and day out. but thank you for your attention, and we hope our project brings joy and hope and happiness to the people and the community of the south of market. thank you so much for your

attention. mr. ionin, jonas, i've known you for god knows how long. we're still looking good, and could you put that on the record, please, and give that to the commissioners and director. thank you so much from our family to you. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, everyone. my name is lauren burnham, and you represent the tuolomne river trust. the central soma act will early exacerbate the acute imbalance we're facing in san francisco and the bay area. this will contribute to further gentrification of our unique neighborhoods, increase traffic on our already congested roads, and increase the demand on the resources that sustain certain

things, namely, the tuolomne river. as you may or may not know, the tuolomne is the main source of water for san francisco. this urban demand has negative impacts on the health of the river and the humans like you and me that rely on it. while san franciscans have shown their commitment to stewardship of the tuolomne by water conservation in the last drought, the water we use is being used to facilitate projects like the central soma project. one as secretary is the flower mart. the flower mart's water supply assessment confirms that the water supplies for this project will come from the water that was conserved by you and me, by all san franciscans. this pushes the bay delta and the tuolomne river ecosystem

dangerously closer to collapse. no matter your class, no matter your race, no matter your day-to-day schedule, no matter your problems, you and i cannot survive without water. well, a river cannot survive without water, either. i urge you to consider the long-term implications this project will have on our water resources and on our community. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. i also have something for everyone, too. please. my name is andrew and i am with the we are soma coalition. we have been filled with numerous soma groups and the demands outlined below are kplekttive community demands. these are not new.

we have been talking and presenting to the planning department for months. these must be met in order for we are soma to support the plan. we want to see a plan that represents the vibrancy and community of soma, and directs funding to the area and goals that are most needed. schools and child care, to require that child care facilities and major new developments, facilities should be provided on-site where it is physically possible to do so. parks and recreation, if there must be popo, rather than city parks, establish a community review board to create new design guidelines and a mandatory review process where the community review board must approve them before they are presented to the planning commission to ensure they are friendly to children, neighborhood families, youth and seniors. the

there -- complete streets, soma safety control in order to lead a community planning process for these changes, alleyways must be prioritized in improvements and changes. environmental sustainability, create a pub participation process via the soma c.a.c., and lastly require living laws in new developments. thank you for your consideration. >> president hillis: thank you very much. any additional public comment? no? seeing none, we'll close public comment and thank you all for coming here. i know it's been a long day, and it's obviously a long time planning this and getting to this point, and we do truly value the info we get here in e-mails and out in the community. it's already considerably shaped this plan and we look to

it to continue shaping it. so we will open it up, if there is any commissioner questions or comments. commission commission commissioner koppel? >> commissioner koppel: again, i want to thank all the staff, director rahaim, the whole environmental review department, as well as supervisor kim's office for all the collaboration on this plan. been supportive of the plan in the past. i'm still supportive. like to see us move forward with all seven items today. i'm not supportive of the midrise option. i think this is a time to prioritize office development. this is one of the few

remaining locations in the entire city of san francisco where we can develop office. it's right next to the transbay terminal. it's right next to caltrans. it's right next to the central subway. this is the right place for this development. i'm looking at a couple of the big developers involved in this plan: tischman, kilroy, tds, all that have been contributing to the city and the local tax base. they've hired local contractors, they've hired san francisco residents, they've hired skilled and trained workforces. all by choice. and let me be clear, this is not always the case with all the projects we approve here, so i think this is a very important deal, and it shouldn't be overlooked and if anything, should be rewarded. this plan still has a very substantial amount of housing

in it. there's a number of housing developments that have already been approved in this area that haven't been built. we're going to be looking at the hub area pretty soon, which is going to have a massive amount of housing, as well, so i am completely supportive of the housing that's existing in the plan today. i do want to recognize the jobs with justice request and am looking forward to making this a policy of ours and using it down the road when we do see projects like hotels that are going to be here for their condition conditional uses. as far as the housing sustainability district, i'm absolutely thrilled this is happening. i want to send my personal thanks to assembly man david chiu. i think it's completely ironic that his bill is being implemented first in his

district in san francisco, so i'm pleased and others

have voiced about the inevitable implications of this plan are affordable housing and our vulnerable populations. and i know that again and again, there's been a call to see plans to enable aggressively purchasing, stablizing and protecting

existing affordable housing. and so one thing, you know, i'm new to the commission, and we might have had this conversation before, but i'd really appreciate having a hearing with the mayor's office of housing that happens potentially before the board of supervisors hearing on this to really kind of get into the nitty-gritty of what plans we already have in place to stablize our housing stock, acquire new sites and protect our local community organizations from displacement. how that compares to what other cities are doing, and ultimately what more can we do to really put protections in place for the specific corridor, because this is something -- that's something that will not just help the central soma but will help all neighborhoods who are going to be going through transition. and then, i'd just finally also want to echo that i'd be interesting in seeing a -- us developing a policy statement around just a continued

encouragement of good jobs with all of the employment employers that are -- players that are coming in to work on this plan. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner fong? >> commissioner fong: i think this is going in the right direction. i think it's impossible to come up with a perfect plan after seven, eight years, but i think as the needs of the city grows, housing is an important piece, but so is workforce, and workforce will continue to draw population in san francisco and an economic benefit. as commissioner koppel mentioned, this is the right proximity. if we're going to do any kind of major push for office, this is the place. i share some concerns about displacement. i thought it was interesting, the one comment to try and get out in front of that a little bit. i'm not sure how to do that, but i just want to raise that

because i think that's a viable point. about salmon and water, i don't know if you guys track salmon and water, but it's a significant water, and it's not down to san francisco's problem, and it's not down to central soma's problem, but it is california's problem, and it's a regional problem, and it's one we should pay attention to. it's whales, it's water temperature -- i've witnessed it personally change the environment in our local waters. so one quick question, and a general one because i don't want to get into details about it, when we roll out a problem like this, steve, when it comes to infrastructure and anticipating the growth, whether it's a day use oath growth or evening use growth, school system, fire department, sewer lines, how does all that coordinate from the planning department back into the various agencies and

departments of the city. >> is that more a ceqa question than a -- hmm...this is a pick up for me because i'm not an environmental expert. i'll let josh take a look at that. >> okay. josh, sorry. >> hi, commissioners. joshua switzky, planning staff. just to address the schools questions, supervisor fewer brought that up earlier, and i thought i'd address that add on. i should address todd david and the hack. the school district has not been talking about increasing schools in the 15 years. school enrollment was declining steadilily for about 20 years until it bombed out a few years ago. we talked to the school district and asked them about schools, and they said no way.

our school district enrollment is declining. that has changed since 2009. over the course of doing this plan, school enrollment has been rising. we have been working very closely, since times have changed recently and school district enrollment is declining, we have been proactive about that. we have been meeting almost monthly with the school district during this time to talk about school issues and grapple with that and have them come to terms with schooling in the city. they are just starting to grapple with that. that said, they actually have two school sites secured in the southeast part of the city, one of which is in mission bay and

one of which is in capped wi-- candlestick. they just hired a facilities manager to build the mission bay school which would serve mission bay and central soma, so they're well on their way to meeting the demand in this area. there could be more schools needed in the future, and we certainly look forward to working with them on an ongoing basis to identify the need for additional facilities and additional lands. so sorry, on the schools, we've been very proactive about that. >> you want to add something? >> yeah. beyond the school -- our conversations with the school district has actually been in the context of an effort that has been largely invisible to the public to date that we all the southeast framework. we started this on our own volition to deal with the question of critical community facilities in the context of

the robust growth that's happening in the southeast from soma all the way down to the county line where about two thirds of the city's growth is happening and will continue to happen. because these individual plans, central soma, what have you, we thought it was time to start taking a step back and have a broader look and talk to all these individual agencies, whether it's the library, dcyf and early childhood education, and public health clinics, in terms of fire, police, and the school district particularly to talk about this issue and to get our heads around it. and we've been forwarding this conversation, working with the city's capital planning department, department of real estate, mayor's office of housing and workforce development, so we're having this robust plan that we've been working on. >> commissioner fong: thank you. i know we've been working on

the future, and it's hard to talk about the future as specific as possible, but what are the planning department's challenges look like in 2026, and what about the schools in maybe it ends up being on the sixth floor of a building, and maybe every kid has an ipat, and they never leave their house, but i think this is a very good plan, and i'm supportive of it. >> president hillis: thank you. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: i wish you the best, mr. wertheim in your new residence after the end of this month.

i guess a few things, and i'd like to, you know, the -- the -- let me take a step back. i've got four stacks of paper. a lot came in today, and i'm trying to read it as i go through. so under the eir, it says unavoidable impact. historic resources are going to be altered and demolished. is that a canned sponsor do we know historic resources that are slated for destruction? i have to vote on a statement of overriding considerations. >> i worked on the historic resource component for the eir. the plan does identify the historic resources that are located within the eir and does identify an impact statement that basically acknowledges that historic resources would be impacted by the development

that's occurring within the eir. so it's not necessarily specific or project specific to specific resources, but it's basically assuming that on the whole, historic resource impacts could occur. >> commissioner richards: sure. so when we did mark and octavia, we did -- we looked at what was historic controls and we downsized that so there was no pressure there. is any of that happening there? >> our strategy around the historic resource has always been to identify the most historic ones and then bring them forward as landmarks so they would be secured. that's the highest level of security. the hpc heard some legislation to designate landmark and landmark districts, in central soma and closer to downtown we

added some conservation districts. as well, our strategy's always been to take -- [inaudible] >> -- we didn't up zone in that area, as all, so we've heard comments around lower height districts, well, it's around the south park and the south of market districts. >> commissioner richards: i feel much more comfortable. thank you. i think everybody's on board to increase as much housing on blocks and lot numbers. i think, the other question i had -- after sitting through, i felt a little uncomfortable because after sitting through the 430 main, i'm looking here in the packet about what the role the department may play in relationship in how it feels with developers in terms of

extending permits that are acting in good faith, but i don't really understand what good faith looks like. it's kind of mushy gushy, so i can't imagine the department would say we're rerevoking your -- revoking your permit because you're not operating in good faith. i think you need it. i really do. it gives you a leg to stand on, director, because you're going to be making the decisions and it also gives clarity to the developer, hey, we've got to do this and perform, rather than at the end of 36 months, go oh, no, i didn't know i had to do it, and then be on the spot to force a decision. we just had one that hey, it wasn't feasible. i'd like for you to tighten that up or at least have some sort of a memorandum that you put forth on what you think your decision criteria would be based on. the other one, yeah, a question for the we are soma folks.

who speaks for we are soma? there's got to be someone, we are soma, somcan? >> i read your letter, and there's some things that are in the letter. there's a we are soma letter, and there's a s 0 mcan letter. there's someone here that looked like they could be accomplished through money from the community benefits package. the question i have is, have you identified this with the department on what it would cost to acquire sites so when the c.a.c. is formed -- and i hope you're a c.a.c. member, and i hope all of you apply because you are soma. how much of what's not on your table today do you think you're going to be able to get through, the 2.2 billion because you're going to be on the c.b.c. recommending these

things get doled out. >> so definitely, we've been working with planning staff in terms of where we would like to see the 70 million go towards. what somcan is raising the issue of the impact that's going to happen once this plan is passed. those things are what we're raising the needs to be addressed now, not till -- not when the money rolls in five, ten years after, because within just even a year, the land value in soma right now, it's about two to 3 million to buy a site for small sites. that's going to increase, and the city doesn't have all the money in the world to -- to buy those sites after the fact. that's why we're saying buy is

now when the land is still lower. so lower -- we've been working with the planning staff on the mitigation. we need the mitigation up front, and there's numerous ways the city could do that, which was laid out by the speaker they had earlier. so those are the things we're uplifting right now. >> commissioner richards: okay. so the benefit, the 2.2 billion, cover me, i think there could be man money in there to achieve some of those goals. >> there could be, but if you read the actual document from staff, it's also money that we don't know that if the developer's going to pay on-site or off-site. it's -- we still don't know what they're planning to do. >> commissioner richards: okay. so having been on a c.a.c.

myself, having to sit down and work with staff to make this more granular, so it's actually kind of the work product of the c.a.c. to say yeah, we identified this up front -- especially with the ab 73, you're going to have money rolling in right away, i think because there's no -- there's no deferment clause. at the scene ae the time of the application and permit being pulled and approval, so i think this is going to be something good to get out this stuff happening pretty quickly. >> yeah, i mean, i actually sat in the soma stablization fund. i was in the beginning of that, and it still takes time to actually purchase sites. it takes six to eight months, and by that, we actually lost some sites due to the length of time for the city to purchase

sites, so those are other things to take into consideration. i would hope, maybe -- and i'd qualify what i just say that there may be creative ways to tie up sites until the money comes in by buying up an option to buy the site, rather than buying the site right way. so those are things that i think would work with the mayor's office and planning department. >> that's why the right of first refusal is so important to preserve those sites before it goes on the market. >> commissioner richards: that's basically what an option is. you have to pay for it, though. nothing's free. thank you very much. the other couple of things that i highlighted here revolved around some of the -- sorry. there's so much up here, some of the mitigation measures. let's see here...okay.

so in the implementation plan, 7.4, page 20. it talks about department requiring the development have -- it's been a long day, folks, sorry. the urban design guidelines applied to projects as a mitigation measure. having sat through what we sat through with 430 main, developer after back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth says hey, i can't do it. it's not feasible or i can't meet your -- what do you do? i mean, are those required? do these need to be met or they're advisory, and if the developer says oh, it's not feasible, are we going to have a hearing screaming back and

forth at each other. >> 430 main street, if it had been done at a later time, they would have been required but they aren't for that project. >> commissioner richards: absolutely. i was drawing a parallel. how do you say what you do if a developer says i can't do that? >> yeah. i mean, these are -- you know, as you spoke with david winslow earlier on that particular project, we're working through the design review process and we're constantly in that kind of conversation with developers about what is feasible, what is not feasible, but they still have to meet the guidelines. they're open to some interpretation on how they work with individuals. >> commissioner richards: they can't be way off. you can't violate eight of the ten. >> no, and midblock open spaces is in the urban design guidelines under s-2. >> commissioner richards: another flag i have here is 7.5.4 on page 21.

this is designation of historic buildings not in ten or 11. here we go again, demonstrative. we've been to this rodeo once before, and we keep relying on what developers tell us and we don't ask for any documentation. so i really want -- i think we should have an infeasiblity policy that says if you say something's not feasible, you have to did he monstrably prove it -- demonstrably prove it. i think the introduction of the housing sustainability district is an interesting concept. i support the 160 foot height. i do agree with staff because over 160 feet, there's a lot more things to deal with and you might not be able to meet the timeline.

so let's try it out, and see if it works. and if you want to raise the height later on because it works well, let's do it. and there's a lot of other stuff that people handed in that it's hard to even think about it at this hour, go point by point by point, so i'll pass. >> president hillis: commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: the harder you push a button, the later it gets. thanks to everybody, staff, all and everybody sitting in that first row there. thank you to the director, thank you, ann marie, herculean effort was made. thank you inform may -- to mayor farrell, supervisor kim, for introducing the overlay of the housing sustainability district. thank you to supervisor fewer for weighing in with an important, really super important comment that i had not heard before -- i may not have paid attention to it.

there were many things which were said today with you clearly resonate with me. i'm going to try to touch on them so they can be heard when this particular large project is being heard by the supervisors. it's policy, support, those may be areas where certain questions could still be worked on and expanded before it moves onto the next stage. so let me take it from the top, and i'll try to put them together grouped by where they belong like general plan amendment and our other five areas of consideration. however, it gets a little too difficult to sort them exactly into those categories. what resonated with me is good jobs for all policy is something which we need to further explore as we move into more detail on the housing sustainability district.

the idea of adding requirements for on-site child care seems extremely important. i think we know of two committed sites, but there are other key sites where that might become something we consider to really ask for, not just wait for one voluntary participation. that goes hand in hand with the idea for school -- the child care in schools i think go into the same consideration for family. it's important of real life families living in central soma. the idea of the flower mart comes up again. i'm really pleased to here that this has come a long, long way where it was before. perhaps there could be policy of considering that replacement pdr and retail uses in that general area could also be in direct support of the flower mart because they are complementary and synergistic

uses in both places. those are ideas that i've been thinking of relative to the flower mart will not be in the same surroundings relevant to new development when it comes on-line in that new location. the community has expressed large concerns about displacement and gentrification to consider a policy for preservation of affordable office and other spaces for nonprofits and cultural district assets i think is an important element when most of this built trend towards new office, how do we protect those who traditionally actually have lived in this area and may now be threatened for displacement? we should encourage a discussion we have not just in this district but every where else and other neighborhoods to make sure or encourage that

off-site bmr units will be built within the plan area so if there is indeed displacement, that people find replacement within their neighborhoods. encourage workforce housing, something we sometimes touch on but never aggressively pursue because there's really not any particular policy -- it is a policy, but there's not much implementation that speaks to that subject. the schools, i talked about that -- as you move along, everything becomes important, and you want to talk about everything, but you can't. i think there is support, and i think it's policy, that the recently enacted south of market the lgbtq community is recognized, and the planning commission strongly supports

it. i want to call it out because it's something that recess nates with me. i have seen struggles on the north of market site where lgbtq was not even properly discussed, and these people were standing in front of us, and we were struggling to figure out how we could really bring them into this project and have them claim their district. reduce parking is an issue that we should consider, particularly as a central soma -- as the central subway is maturing. we just unfortunately heard yesterday, i hate to say it, that there is an additional delay as we are pitching the transformation of this district to greatly depend on public transportation. we may have to look at a gradual further reduction in parking ratios in this area.

i agree with the idea of when commissioner richards mentioned it. the 160 foot height seemed to be a well thought out idea, and i would suggest that this commission supports it. i said that, i said that, that. not much was talked about, the use it or lose it clause to prevent land banking, so entitlements automatically expire after certain time. we ourselves often are conflicted when projects come in different location that's have already been on the books for eight or nine or ten years. this may be an opportunity because this is such an incredible opportunity that a use it or lose it clause can be

successfully utilized. i want to speak a little bit more to the specific points that came out of the somcan-we are soma letter and just briefly call out basic policies which i'd just like to mention because they are important. that is the eviction and displacement protection. we have -- staff has done a tremendous job in mapping sensitive sites and there are two strong tools in place to control and protect, but to make ourselves aware and shout this out to the board of supervisors i think is extremely important. the other one is interim emergency controls. there's the attempt, and i think supervisor kim is very

well aware and supportive of it is the increase to -- the measures to increase affordable housing in central soma, coupled with the idea to support job creation for local residents in central soma. this comes obviously out of the housing sustainability -- out of the housing sustainability district legislation, and i believe the way it's being setup, that targets higher fon end use jobs, workforce development, living wage, stable schedules, fair working conditions, can be feathered in because there is a broad labor policy in that particular overlay already. i think it will require perhaps more time and more detailed work for the community to continue pushing it, and i hope that staff will be receptive to work with the community to more

clearly define and develop the specifics of it. overall, i am supportive of the plan, i do believe there has been an incredibly forth right and valiant effort to standup and answer all questions. i am in that line of work in my own profession, and i know how hard it is to be in that line of a cross fire, but i do say with appreciation that i think you have done everything possible that you can do that is not to say that you have done everything are, but there's always room for improvement, there's always room for other questions, and i believe that you have stood open to receive and work with those questions, so i am in support of what you're doing. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner melgar? >> vice president melgar: thank you. i will try to be brief because the hour's late, and we're all

tired. so i will also thank staff for an outstanding job. so in the time that i've been in a commission for a year and a half, i've seen this plan take shape and be improved. and you mr. wertheim in particular have been very open and responsive to all kinds of people with very different agendas, so i appreciate your flexibility and your hard work in doing this. i am still -- well, so i'm not going to repeat some of the other comments of the commissioners. i, too, am very happy to see the good jobs policy and the language and all of that stuff. i remember a very worried about the potential for displacement. we still live in a capitalist society where real estate kind of rules the day in san francisco. and you know, i wanted to point out one thing, though, in the

comment, a lot of the folks were talking about the jobs-housing imbalance as if were a 1:1 number, for every job, we need one housing unit, and that's not quite the case. you know an average household in san francisco is a size of 2.6. it's not like every single person needs one unit. nevertheless, we do need to look at it as bigger than that. but the potential for displacement, adding, you know, a class of jobs that, you know, is higher is big, and so i have been talking a lot to the staff at supervisor kim's office. i do believe that they are working on stuff, but as i say the mayor's office of housing representative here, i really

would like to put you on the spot, and if you could come up and talk to specifically if we have a strategy for the central soma plan. we know that it's coming, and so what are you thinking? >> okay. amy chan from the mayor kazz office of housing and community development. so our office currently has a few programs or tools to address basically antidisplacement. so we have a small sites acquisition program, loan program. we're very proud of this program. we basically lend funds to housing developers to purchase, acquire and rehab rent controlled units for -- from 5 to 25 units and on the condition that they're deed restricted for the life of the property. it's been a successful program. we've preserved 25 sites to date and have another 15 sites in the pipeline which would

bring us to a total of 300 units that would be preserved. some of these units have active ellis act evictions. actually we would love to expand and have more resources to be able to acquire more small sites and larger rent controlled properties. we are excited that we do have a new source of funding for small sites. housing funding candidated have made a movement to repurpose the only side mistake -- the old seismic resource funding, and we intend as we roll out this program to largely use a lot of these funds for small sites. so we are excited about that, and we absolutely -- this is,

you know, a citywide program, but we would absolutely have a focus, a laser focus on soma and central soma. in addition, we also fund about $6 million in eviction prevention defense and rental subsidies annually and we fund nonprofit organizations to basically provide these services. and the south of market is one of the most served communities. so we have -- and we also know that there's pending legislation and a ballot measure that would scale up the eviction defense program to a right to counsel program where we would be basically serving any resident who would be served with an -- a non -- no fault eviction. so there could be potentially an expansion of our eviction defense -- our eviction defense program. and again, it would be a

citywide program, but the south of market and central soma would be served. we would love, again, if with additional resources, we would love to do more both in terms of acquiring the rent controlled properties and in terms of making sure that we are providing tenants with the eviction prevention and services that they need. >> vice president melgar: thank you, miss chan and you're doing good work. so i guess my question was more, so it -- you -- it sounds like from your description that it's -- the aquesignificance program is more of an opportunity driven, you know, program. there's, you know, a site that comes up, as, you know, a nonprofit developer, but i'm wondering if there's an actual strategy to prioritize central soma because we know that, you know, this plan will exacerbate the possibility of eviction. so it's not the same, right, in central soma that it would be

in st. francis woods. so we are in terms of a long-term strategy prioritizing that in any way? >> yeah. and i think we're very committed to working closely with the community members and the members of the we are soma coalition to identify the sites that we should be targeting and looking at both in terms of the acquisition rehab for preservation and in terms of sites for new construction of affordable housing. >> vice president melgar: okay. thank you, miss chan. >> thank you. >> so just to add to that to revisit a point we made earlier, all of the money that we made from central soma projects has to say in soma, right? so maybe other -- maybe the city could prioritize other funding sources for soma, as well, but we know this is one of the lynch pins of the affordable housing plan, that the funding will be in soma.

>> vice president melgar: thank you. >> president hillis: just a couple questions, mr. wertheim, and thank you for all of your work on this. i don't understand why it's so hot in here. 'cause they turned off the air conditioning. >> about an hour ago. >> president hillis: but i mean my two biggest issues as we look through this, and i think they've been adequately voiced -- i'm not sure we have all the answers for them are one, the jobs-housing balance. we've landed in the right place. i'm glad we've -- through modification to the legislation kind of expanded the number of housing units that can be built here and capped out on the eir. but i think director rahaim's comments have to be getting that this is the right place for additional office space as well as housing given the fact

that the city sin vesting in intrastructure -- that the city is investing in infrastructure. i think it is one of the places that we can sensibly build offices. i think this is the right decision for the city, it's the right decision for the region. so i think we've landed in a good place on this. on displacement, which i think is the other kind of big issue, gentrification and displacement, and obviously this is happening here in soma. it's happening in bernal heights, it's happening in the inner sunset, it's happening in areas where there aren't plan areas. certainly as there's new jobs being created, it'll -- you know, if we don't keep housing production at a rapid pace, we'll impact prices and displacement as values go up.

so there were a couple things that i think came up through this. i mean, this issue of kind of maximizing neighborhood preference for every dollar, it seems like we're doing that with the fees. and i mean i think it would be good to add to the board of supervisors that, you know, we try to prioritize as much as possible. i know there's other neighborhoods that have priorities, too, but neighborhoods that are facing increased gentrification pressures, that they get priority for housing dollars, and small sites acquisition program which i think is happening, but i don't think it -- it can't hurt to state it again here and make sure we do that. there was a question about public -- publicly owned sites and prioritizing those for housing. are there many publicly-owned sites here in the central soma area. >> there's basically south ,