and to insure that we have the a.d.a. accessibility guidelines met. so we hope to match the existing asphalt. >> excuse my interruption, but at this moment we are not talking to the project, but to the matter of continue. >> okay. and so let me skip to that. to date we have engaged with community members and north beach and major concerns about the closure have been homelessness and the duration of the closure, and alternate park facilities. we have a lot of community engagement to continue to do. and we really see this approval as insuring that the designer proposing is in keeping with landmark status of the park.

and this will not be the final hearing before the park and rec and we have a lot of community engagement to do and the park will finally need approval from the rec and park commission for the project to move forward. >> are you opposed to or are you neutral about the continuance? >> i would say i am neutral. i would like to present the project and if we have one more step forward to take the project, but we will be fine either way. >> if i may, so what i understood you to say is that you are looking for the approved of the concept design and there will be not only future public meetings, but the rec and park commission actually has to i a prove the final design, correct? >> we need this done for rec and park to finally approve the project. and i think a lot of the concerns relate to the impacts of the closure on the community, which we still in terms of

project planning, still have a lot of engagement that we will be doing. >> all right. so because from what i heard from the community, the concerns aren't really about historic issues but more about the closure and the homeless question and other issues related to the use of the park, which aren't really things that this commission can address and take into consideration. >> and the proper notification. >> the notification was completed by the planning department, i assume. for this hearing. right? thank you. we will consider that. does any member of the public wish to speak to the continuance of the item? if so, please come forward. >> i have lived in knot beach for about 10 years and am a small business owner. from a financial aspect, i would like to ask for postponement as well. it's been really hard to do

business in north beach. we had about two years of construction on the jasper alley, columbus avenue, and that was also the staging ground for a lot of the construction, so a lot of construction equipment parked outside of my business. we are seeing a lot of empty store fronts already. and then with the st. patrick's day fire, that's a whole bunch more businesses that people aren't coming into the neighborhood. we are seeing less foot traffic. it would take the park away for a whole year, that is going to negatively affect a lot of our businesses. so i would like to ask for a postponement as well. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any other member of the public wish to speak to the potential continuance of the item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? commissioner johnck. >> an i would move continuance. it seems like there is some overlap here and even though i agree that some of the issues don't exactly apply to our

historic issue, i was unaware that the park was going to close -- even though i thoroughly read the entire document. that would be my persuasion. i don't see a problem with moving it a month really with the parks department so we can do more and hear more about this. >> yes? >> commissioners, it would be helpful for staff and perhaps for park department to hear about what you would like us to accomplish in that month. i think we're prepared to present today. we do concur with president wolfram's comments that the concerns, while i am sure very important and valid, seem to be better served to be addressed at the rec-park commission hearing rather than through a month delay or even a two-month continuance. it sounds like director ram mention there had will be a lot of community outreach. this is one step to keep the

project moving forward. and certainly if the project were to change based oen that community input -- based on that community input, it would have to come back for you for re-review. for us seemed fairly straightforward that the commission can issue some sort of decision on the c of a and move forward with the community engagement. >> commissioner hyland? >> if we hear it today, we might be able to ask some questions and figure out why it takes a year to do this and what is being -- and what other options have been explored. >> okay. >> all right. >> any other comments or questions? >> i will withdraw my motion. >> so we will actually hear this item today. so i think why don't we have a presentation on the project. and then we can take public comment on the actual project.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. elizabeth johntier of planning staff. the project before you is a certificate of appropriateness for work at washington square park. the park is under the jurisdiction of the san francisco recreation and park department. the site is bounded by columbus avenue, fillbert, stockton, union, and powell street in the north beach neighborhood. in a p zoning and open space height involved district. washington square was locally designated as landmark number 226 in 1999. the square was established in 1850 and redesigned in 1958 according to to master plan by douglas bayliss and frances joseph mccarthy who were prominent designers of the mid century modern period. the city park includes a large central lawn affected by concrete walking paths, benches, monuments and a playground and

large trees and smaller shrub. a certificate of appropriateness was approved by the h.p.c. in march of 2017. rec and parks washington square water conservation project seeks to reduce the park's existing irrigation water use. it entails removal and replacement of the park's existing irrigation system. however, the designation ordinance for washington square outlines specific scopes of work that require a hearing before the h.p.c. these scopes include replacement or alteration to be parents of the park's benches, fencing barriers or walls, hard edged raised planting beds, mature trees, and changes to the paving plan including the paving material. this exhibit entitled procedures for review of alteration to washington square for incorporation into the designation ordinance was included in your packet. based on the items that levi conover mentioned of the

project, requiring review requires the removal and replacement of seven trees recommended for removal by the recs and park department tree assessment which is in your packet, and the planting of four new trees in areas where there were previously placed. in event, additional funding is secured, additional scopes will be included in the scope that is under review today. a.d.a. updpragrades to the path including regrading of the existing cross slope of the pathways. removal of existing asphalt pathways with stained concrete, installation of perimeter cobble pavers at the lawn and planting bed edges. installation of concrete curb along the planner beds edges, and removal and replacement of the existing wood benches in kind as needed. there will be no change to the bench location. the intent is to retain as many existing benches as. as a minimum, the replacement of

the bench legs might be necessary. they would be painted to match existing. the park plans is to layout of the pathways and the layout of the plant and bed perimeters would remain unchanged. the department has received public correspondence related to the project in regard to the duration of the closure of the park. based on the requirements of article 10 and the secretary of interior's standard, staff has determined that the proposed work is compatible with the character defining features of the landmark. the essential form and integrity of the landmark will not be impaired by the proposed project. staff finds that the proposed work maintains the historic configuration and visual appearance of the park. the trees shrubs and other ground cover are in keeping with existing plant palette. and the perimeter paverers, curb, and replacement bench wills not alter the character-defining features of

the landscape. beneather the fencing or any other will impact the use or open character of the landscape. staff recommends approval with the general conditions of the final materials before this review and planning department preservation staff. this concludes the presentation. i am available for any questions you may have. >> president wolfram: thank you. rec and park have a presentation? >> three minutes. >> you heard most of it. >> president wolfram: we will give you three more minutes. >> we discussed the a.d.a. requirements and the pathways and our intent really with this is to bring the park back to the existing condition. better than the existing condition and change the configuration and things like the fence, the low fencing we have proposed are intended to help prevent people from walking

across the new perennial beds. and really intended to be as unobtrusive as possible. just a couple of extra details on the project. the project is currently as imagined with the irrigation and drainage based scope and the project is funded in partnership with the p.u.c. large landscape grant program, rec and park water conservation program, and also general funds secured by supervisor peskin. to address the closure t project will require the closure of the majority of the park for up to the year with the exception that the northwest corner of the park that is the children's play area and restroom will remain open for the duration of the project. we are exploring all ways possible to expedite the construction under the city contract code. and the yearlong closure that we have been messaging to the community is based on experience we have had at other sites that are frequently unforeseen

conditions when we start digging and so it may be that we can do this quite a bit more quickly. but we are really trying to set expectations for the neighborhood because i don't want to go telling people that we other going to close it for five months and then have it closed for a year. and so we're trying to be realistic with the community. today the department has engaged with multiple neighborhood and community groups and will be continuing in the coming months to the work with the community on all of the issues they have addressed in terms of mitigating the closure and this will not go forward to the rec and park commission without a full plan to help with the mitigation issues. >> president wolfram: thank you very much. commissioner hyland? >> i have some questions for mr. conover. this is one in a series of renovations throughout the city

and many other parks. have there been any other evaluation of lessons learned? and were any of the other park reservations phaseed? >> yes. i can't speak to all of them. i know alta plaza and alamo were both phased. and a big part of that was due to their scale and they are quite a bit larger sites. and there were some real lessons learned that we are trying to apply on that project. so the full removal of the drainage system is one. and we've had others where that was not fully incorporated into the scope. and it ends up being a big change orders later. i think that is the best example i can think of. also with the pathways, while we don't have funding yet, we are really working and we would prefer to not go into this project and not address the pathways because, one, the community really wants it, it will mean a closure, and if we had to do the pathways in five year, it would mean another closure, and nobody wants to do that. we have had others where the projects got extended because we

realized halfway through that we needed to add that scope. >> a couple more questions for you. so can you further explain the removal and saying that some of the asphalt would not be or currently isn't funded, therefore, at some future time we hope to remrplace -- >> it would address the -- >> benches would on be touched if we do the repaving. so otherwise we are within the hard scape. >> i assume the removal of the a.c. paving is throughout. if there is funding. but in the draw iing.

>> it is not in generally great shape. >> an it wasn't clear to me exactly where all the grade areas -- >> would be replaced. >> and in the crosshatched areas are the ones regraded for the a.d.a. >> yes. >> the last question for you, what have you looked at as far as attempted phasing on this project? >> phasing would be pretty difficult. i can't say it would be impossible because anything is possible, but we are actually working to incorporate the cost of pavement. and what we would need to do in the high level is install the main drain and probably get 2/3 or maybe 1/2 of the branch drain lines and effectively have a drainage system beneath the lawn that is akin to what you have at a golf course. it will be a really well drained

system and this requires the removal of the top 9 inches of soil. the soil is a silty sponge. it just does not let water go. and so we will be removing the top 9 inches of soil, laying a new drainage network and doing engineered soil to replace the top 9 inches. and so this is what makes it a challenge to phase is we have relatively small site relative to some of the other park, but you have this interconnected drainage and irrigation network with the length that runs the perimeter of the park. and shutting down after the park and trying to keep other plants alive is a challenge. >> i guess i have one more question. if you don't redo the paving and if the paving remains as is? can the fence be moved? to the inside perimeter? >> well, we still have -- >> so the park would be available? >> we still have -- we're still doing all the perimeter planting and that is also where the main

irrigation line runs to feed into the park. so we need to trench through all of the perimeter pathways -- i'm sorry, all the perimeter planters to remove the existing irrigation system and then replace it with the new one. it is -- it is a challenge for sure. >> all right. >> thank you. >> so we'll actually take public comment on the project this time. so any member of the public wish to speak to the proposed project. if so, please come forward. >> i am dale widener. excuse me, i am getting a cold. i live in north beach, a member of the friend of washington square who have followed this project from the beginning. we first heard about the start with the irrigation working with levi, rec and park, and then everybody said the drainage. and it turns into a swamp in other parts and the drainage

made a lot of sense with the help of rec and park and aaron peskin getting the funding for that. it makes all the sense to the community that i know that we also address the need and the hardscape, what i call the hardscape. if you go down there now, it is a hodgepodge of -- i don't know if anybody live there is or goes through there, and the way it's put together. and it's going to damage. the people we have reached out in the community, my friend mark and joan, have reacted as we expected a lot of people are going to react when we shut it down. but the overall when you explain to them what is going on, they understand that these improvements are going to be for the future of the park, and are very valuable, and it is really unfortunate we have to shut it down and would be great if we could phase it and levi and other cans figure out how to phase it, perfect, but overall, the community i talk to, the friends support what we are doing. it seems to make the most sense. shi

shut it down and do all three things at once and keep the preservation and that is hugely proposing and the proposing of the hardscape does that. a lot of us in the community when they understand it, they do support it. we all understand and i have talked to levi and other friend, we've got to get the word out to the community. we have talked about organizations and when they hear overall, let's do it. shut it down one time and let's get it down for the future of the community and for the future of the park. it is a great park. it is overused and people love it. and there will be a lot of emotion that for a lot of us jus going to have to be done. >> thank you very much. >> and any other member of the public wish to speak to the project? if so, please come forward. >> my name is mark bruno and i

apologize for not saying that earlier. i want to point out in the case report provide bid the planning department, there is one sentence about outreach in 82 pages. the department has received public correspondence related to this project in regard to the duration of the closure of the park due to the remodel and the dislocation of the park's homeless population. that's it. if you to go through the 82 pages, the work closed or closure isn't anywhere. there is just one line in the 82 page, but more interestingly as joan told you before,some who wrote in crayon on the notice that was provided by rec and park, which is partially here on my computer. you can see if you were -- this pretty picture and go on and on about the project that is partially not even funded, the hardscape. and never once it here does it say closed or closure, a year later, phasing, anything that implies that this has a bad effect on us. in fact, if you go back to page 8 -- the 82-page report, it just

says there is correspondence about these topics, namely the closing of the park and the dislocation of the park. it doesn't say what the opinions is and maybe somebody wrote to us and said how great this would be to close the park because the homeless would have to leave. we don't know. there is a sense here that we are doing this no matter what because it is for your good. you don't know it is for your good, but if you knew better, you would be on our side. that is always the wrong way to act to a vocal and activist group in north beach. and perhaps now we should think about as the business community as was spoke on earlier that perhaps this isn't the right time, but nose are not up to me or -- those are not up to me or mr. conover or the planner but to all of us as a community, especially those who live there. let me also bring up an element, a planning element, that is relevant and can be determined right here by this commission. so back when this park was landmarked, and i will point out that it was landmarked specifically at the request and with the work of telegraph hill

dwellers. not the friends of the west, not me, i was the vice president a few years after that, but in 1998 and 1999, this group telegraph hill dwellers landmarked it. and in the architecture section of the c.o.a. request -- i'm sorry, the request to landmark at the time, the planning department wrote is, this square, washington square, the use here has been -- this is under the architecture and use category -- and the respect of washington square is the active involvement of the groups in the parks improvement and in the 1950s washington square was relandscaped through a project initiated by the committee for beautification of washington square including columbus avenue civic club, italian federation, north beach merchants and boosters -- the merchant, never given a presentation here today. and the church north beach lions and church of saints peter and paul, boys and girls club, and participated and allowed to participate before they should

be today because it's a very nature of the park. >> thank you. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you. does any other member of the public wish to speak to this project? seeing and hearing none, we will close public comment. commissioners? >> commissioner -- >> thank you. i am glad i heard more of the presentation. i do think the staff did a good job related to article v and our specific responsibilities for assessing the compatibility of the design with what we're trying to achieve here. actually, the history of the park is absolutely fascinating. so i would -- the only thing is i would say and commissioner hyland, you asked about the phasing, and i realize the issues and you can say, well, how does phasing or my interest in phasing relate to historic? but the article v say that we are agreeing that the project

would maintain the existing use of the park as a public open space, and of course, that is use of the park and continuing use of the park, which it will, but anyway, i would encourage that the commission, park and rec commission, to consider if there is anything can be done to phase the project. but other than that, i think the staff report satisfies what i would be interested in relating to article v. >> thank you. commissioner matsuda. >> i have one clarifying question for mr. conover. you have the funding to do the irrigation, draining and treeing, correct? but you do not have the funding at the moment to do the paving. >> we do not. >> so should you go forward with the project to do the irrigation and drainage and trees? and you are going to have -- you

mention that you shared with us that the park will be closed up to one year. and let's say you don't get the funding for the paving until after that is completed. so the park then gets shut down again? >> i guess in theory -- so i don't have a perfect timeline on when we may or may not get funding. i would say if it does not become apparent in the near future -- i can't give you an exit date -- that we will -- that if it becomes apparent we will get funding for the pathways relatively soon, then we would delay this project until we knew we had the money. if something else came up and it just became an absolute no, then yes, we would just focus on the irrigation and drainage, and it would be above me, and i don't know when money would come for pathways at that point. >> how long of a process is it to repave or to pave to bring it

up to a.d.a.? >> i would say -- i would assume it would take two or three months. if you are just doing it by itself. >> thank you. >> thank you. director -- >> i have one more question, too, if you might. and best case scenario, when would you start work and close the park? >> best case scenario would be december of this year. it could be depending on funding, it could be any time into the following -- >> between now and when you start work, there would be meetings with the community? >> absolutely. >> and with the rec and park commission to go over the issues? >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioners, we have a motion? >> i will move approval of the staff recommendation. >> second that. >> president wolfram: seeing nothing, further, commissioners, there is a motion that has been seconded to approve the matter with conditions on that motion. commissioner black? >> yes. >> commissioner johnck?

>> yes. >> commissioner johns? >> yes. >> a commissioner matsuda? >> yes. >> a commissioner hyland? >> yes. >> commission president wolfram? >> yes. >> so moved. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. and in place of the item 6, 2018-004633pca. this is the mayor's process improvements ordinance. this is an adoption hearing. >> good afternoon, commissioners. jacob bintliff from the planning department staff. it is my pleasure to be here with you and thank you for the opportunity to walk you through two separate mat makers that are closely related. the first summary of the presentation is to give a summary in terms to have mayor's executive directive on housing production that came out in september of last year, a number of items related to that.

some of the items not being planned are being implemented through the ordinance introduced by the mayor. the second portion of the presentation is regarding your recommendation to the board of supervisors and on that ordinance specifically which is a component of influencing that plan. i wanted to make that clear for everybody. there we go. thank you. so i will open by giving the overview of the process improvements planned. and where we are with that. and so mayor lee issued this executive directive on housing production in september of last year. it was issued to a number of departments including the planning department. had a few things in it. one thing was to establish approval deadlines for the entitlement phase and housing project. this is said that we need to approve projects within a certain time frame depending on the level of environmental review from six months to 22 months in the most complicated eir. second thing was a one-year approval time frame for the post

entitlement. that mostly relates to the departments like d.e.i., public works and so on. and third element was accountability. regular reporting to planning commission, to historic preservation commission, to the mayor's office as well. senior manager, and our department was named to oversee the effort and that is from the planning department and the counterpart in the other departments. and of course, that we would find a way to guarantee or provide that the projects be approved within the time frame set out. and the final requirements were that the planning department was the issue of a process improvement plan with a bunch of measures to implement these time frames by december 1. so we did issue that. and also for the other agencies involved to put forth a consolidated interagency plan about the post entitlement component. that was required by april 1 and that came out around mid april, april 15 in that time. so regarding the planning department, the process improvement plan that was delivered in december, and there were sort of five categories of

measures that were proposed that are here on this lovely slide, but i will go ahead and dive right into them and talk about some of the matters that we are currently either recently implemented or are implementing now under each of the five categories. the first is regarding application intake and review. [please stand by] ... that provides all of the

different types of entitlements and applications that were called out and any other documents related to environmental review. we moved several applications to receive them online in april. that is exciting. these are the more simple applications that will be moving over the rest of the year. that will be exciting. another major piece we're working on is to consolidate our applications. we have many different types of entitlement applications, they all come in different times and separately from the environmental review. in june, we'll be implementing a procedure to have a project application that every project puts in, that includes the environmental review. key information. and then everything will be supplemental to that. our hope is that this is going to help us to have -- to gather one set of project information at a time, which will be

wonderful for our data purposes and be able to look back and see what is going on at different times. it's meant to set us up for a lot more coordination between environmental planning and the folks in the current planning division who are implementing the planning code as well. there is a lot for both teams to cover, so it's hard to work together. we're trying to move to a consolidated approach. in addition, we have modification to the notification procedure. as i mentioned, kind of a more project coordinated approach for the current planner to be a project manager for that project, including environmental and otherwise. second, component of the plan was regarding routine permits and approvals. one thing i'll call your attention to, we have the planning centre, where we can do same day approval of various things. we have preservation planner who

are there on regular shifts. the shifts were split up, there is morning and afternoon, that was split by intervening shift. so that caused some consternation for folks coming in trying to be seen. they basically spend all day there. so we consolidated the hours, monday through thursday, 10:15 to 2:45 in the afternoon and gave the desk its own number wheel. what i heard so far, that people are happy with it. we're actually seeing most everyone who is coming in, that same day, so that was a really simple fix right there, getting people in and out of the planning information center when they have a preservation issue. and it's often people who don't know they need to see the preservation specialist and then have to get back in line, but that is all going more smoothly.

i won't go into great detail on a lot of the matters, but happy to answer questions. we're trying to pilot advanced over-the-counter approval where people can schedule appointments with us to handle project review on a same day approval and see if we can apply that to other projects in the future. environmental review and design review, we have more efforts that will be active in the fall. some of them involve legislation, some of them just involve the procedures of the environmental review. one thing to point out here, for historic preservation purposes, we have part of the environmental review process, historic resource determination, can be supplemental application to that. we are now requiring people to not -- people can't give us an environmental application until

after the ppa is issued. they'll do the application and then do the development application. so one issue with consolidating all those, is that really a lot of sponsors, one of the things they want to know is what is the preservation on the site? there is interest in having pre-application or predevelopment evaluation by staff of whether there is a historic resource evaluation, so our environmental planning presentation staff is working on that right now, seeing what is possible. i don't have a great deal of detail about that, but we're working on offering some kind of preliminary historic resource evaluation to folks whether they have application or not. that's a piece we can speak more about, but i wanted to call that to your attention. regarding the planning code and commission policies, we have a number of items, one is included

in the mayor's order yans, about the permitting processes for affordable housing and large residential projects downtown. also we'll be discussing proposed amendments to articles 10 and 11 regarding minor routines that could be the same day approval based on your recommendations. and finally, a number of ongoing improvements in the area of the administration and technology, one of them jermaine germane to our conversation is to come up with the addresses when we do public notification. we have been using third parties, the planner would need to get from the sponsor the list of addresses provided by a third party, which of course they had to pay for, and then come back to us so we could print out the addresses, to send out the

notices. we now have a great tool that our gis specialist just kind of did. and we said, oh, great, so we're saving a lot of time already. it makes sense i need 150, use the same assessor database and then another database purchased by the city to get at the mailing addresses to get to tenants and occupants as well. so a number of those things i mentioned are things we can do administratively or as commission policies, but a lot of what we do is implementing the planning code. so a number of the suggestions in the process improvement plan involve planning code amendments. to that end, mayor farrell introduced an ordinance on april 24 that would implement the changes. i wanted to clarify the

ordinance was reintroduced yesterday with a few minor changes. for commissioners and members of the public who grabbed the copies over there, there is one document that says executive summary, that overview of the ordinance and the planning department recommendations and the draft resolution. and the original ordinance, there is another one titled supplemental memorandum that has the full copy of the ordinance as reintroduced. just to clear up the confusion of what we're looking at. the ordinance, there is three categories that are covered in the ordinance. the first of them deals with approvals for 100% affordable housing projects and large residential projects in the downtown areas in the c-3 zoning district. the issue of affordable housing in 2016, the board of supervisors approved, they created a new planning code, section 315 to allow us to do approvals of 100% of affordable housing only. the intention was so there

wouldn't have to be additional hearings. not every project can access that because they have to be located in certain areas that offer certain exceptions. you have to be in these two neighborhoods or downtown to get these, and so on. we have projects that are really close to being approved that are 100% affordable under the current system. for 100% affordable projects only, we would be able to approve the project with the same level of exceptions through a planned unit development, which is pretty broad. it's anything that does not increase the height or the allowable density. those are the key things you can't do. we'd be able to do that administratively. and the planning commission can delegate their review authority to the planning department so there would not be a hearing for those projects either. those seeking the 100% affordable housing bonus established in 2017, i believe, last year, those projects you

would also establish administrative approval process. right now there is design hearing that has to occur, we would replace that with 315.1 and that would allow us to approve the projects provided they're in the program area, they meet all the requirements, they meet the design guidelines for the affordable housing bonus project and are limited to the density bonuses set for the program. the idea is we really want to, if it's 100% affordable, we want to have the maximum flexibility and roll out the red carpet. they're complicated to finance and get done and the uncertainty of having additional layers of approval can have significant impact for the projects. so regarding large downtown residential projects that are not affordable, or not necessarily affordable, section 309 of the plans code governs our review of those projects. there are exceptions that can be

granted. there is a planning commission for anything over a certain threshold. that would not be changing. we would be with this ordinance adding two exceptions that you can get from planning code requirements. those are usable open space and dwelling unit exposure. that is about the amount of open space any unit has to look out upon. in most cases, these projects have to get a variance from the zoning administrator to proceed, because the requirements simply are not compatible with the high rise tower in a downtown environment. so this would add those two as exceptions and planning section 309 there would be a hearing for the projects, but it would lepp us to review -- help us to remove one layer of review. neighborhood notification. right now, we do notification for any public hearing, this hearing. the planning commission hearings and for certain building permit applications in residential areas and commercial areas, those are often referred to as

311 and 312. new construction, alteration or changes of use, we need to do notification before the planning department can approve the building permit for that application. the way it's laid out in the code, there are 30 unique requirements we have to fulfill. sometimes 150, sometimes fewer, sometimes 20 days, so on, the notification once we start to look at how to imply phi this. -- simplify that, the staff said these are so complicated, you can have a minor error that can delay by two months. and we looked at how much paper it generates, three tons of paper every year, not even the hearing or posters. we also realized that many of them were not sending notification to tenants, but to owners. many didn't have the multilingual language requirements and none of it is on the website.

so it's a case of things getting added in over time and now is the time to look at how to achieve public notification for all the same things that we're currently notifying for. there are a number of things that when notification is required for a building permit, that means it can't be approved on the same day, it has to go in the backlog and you have a four month delay right there. so those are the issues we see right now. this is a chart that was created by the staff. this is what we use to track what we're supposed to do, depending on the case. the different types of hearings and approvals. you can see the mixing and matching and 31 flavors of notification that you may or may not need to do. the proposal in the mayor's ordinance is to standardize a lot of those. there would be new planning code section, 333, it would establish uniform requirements for mail notice, posted notice, the posters and near the site, on

the site and online notice. so the notification period would be 20 days in all these cases. most of the notices have a 20-day mailing period now. 20 days for everything. for the mail notice, 150 foot radius around the property, some cases 300, some cases 150 right now and this would create an online notice. this would replace the newspaper notification, like for today's hearing for example, when the planning commission has their adoption hearing for the planning code amendments, 20 days prior to that a notice had to run in the newspaper. so instead, we would notice those hearings online. in addition, the online notice would provide a way to download and print the plan sets of whatever the building permit application was. right now we mail out the 11 x by 17 that generates tons and paper. and so instead, we would be sending out, giving ourselves

the ability to send something smaller, the half sheet, post card, has all the information and a way to get the paper plan sets and have some at the planning department as well am finally, we would -- this ordinance applies to multilingual instructions to all of the forms of notice and would also allow us to have the posters that go up, be as small as 11 x by 17, not necessarily that small, but could be. the issue is there is different code sections, 30 x 40, 36 x 48, let's just have one that is determined by the zoning administrator. there is one type of alteration on a structure that currently requires notification that would no longer require it under this ordinance. otherwise, any hearing or type of building permit that requires notification would still require it. the one exception is limited

rear yard addition that is permitted under section 136.c.25, we refer to it as the rear yard popout. the reason for that, it's a limited amount of space and constrained in the planning code. that's actually in the planning code, this little diagram. it says that you can go, if you're in a district where you have 45% rear yard requirement, you can go into that rear yard requirement, never as far back as into a 25% requirement, never as far back as 15 feet from the property line, but go back from the existing structure 12 feet into the rear yard. if it's two stories, you can go on -- with maximum 300 square foot increase or maximum 360 if it's a two story addition onto a home. what does this have to do with approving housing?

it takes up a lot of time. there is a whole list of things you can approve without notification. that is one thing called out. it has to go into the queue and there is a 4-month delay. it takes up staff time just reviewing these projects. so with something that came up when we were doing the improvement plan, that was something that is taking us away from looking at larger housing projects and approving the housing element. the final component which is the reason we're here today and the most germane to you, there are amendments to articles 10 and 11 of the planning code in the ordinance. the issue that surfaced again as we were doing the improvement plan was, hey, there is a lot of things that the historic preservation commission has delegated authority to us to approve the certificates or the

permits to alter administratively, but those things still need to be appealed, people have to have the ability to appeal them to the body because they're getting a certificate or permit alter that involves not being able to be approved same day. it has to go into the queue. has to be a 3 or 4-month delay. one of the scopes of work we're talking about, ada, automatic push buttons on doors. this is for folks that are mobility impaired, have a push button to operate the door. that is one thing. business signs or awnings. rooftop equipment, skylight and the historical landmark plaques themselves. these things would be no longer required to have, if we're in a conservation district, a permit or if talking about a landmark being building, they no longer have to have the certificate of appropriateness. they would have to conform with

the guidelines in article 10 and 11 already. and i think if you look in the ordinance, you can see each one of the scopes of works listed out, it says as in conformity with the standard in 11.6, depending on which article we are in. so these are -- here is tim frei with the planning department who can talk to you about the guidelines. >> good afternoon, commissioners. in your case report i want to point out to the three items that are specifically related to your review, starting on page 58, that is section 333 of the code which will change our notification requirements which jacob just reviewed. as you recall, the articles are complex, sometimes it was 300 foot radius of owners and occupants, sometimes just owners

and sometimes not with the historic district, so this helps us tremendously in unifying the notification procedures city-wide and we believe we'll still give proper notice effectively to the areas where the public may be concerned. the majority of the planning code amendments related to article 10 start on page 63 of your packet. specifically, as jacob mentioned, there are very routine scopes of work that we still have to take in. we cannot approve over the counter, that this commission is delegated to us. as you know through the delegation, it's been a very successful program. we've only had maybe one or two -- actually it's like two or three, requests for hearing out of the hundreds of permits and entitlements we've reviewed. so we feel fairly confident that these scopes of work will remain

routine and this does not preclude any planner from approving these over the counter, preservation planners still have to review the work and will apply our guidelines, which are mandated to be based on the secretary of interior standards and are codified in articles 10 and 11. as you know, for article 11, which is located solely downtown in the c-3 zoning district, your properties that are under your purview generate just as many entitle the for all the certificates of appropriateness we do city-wide every year. so we're looking at 300-350 in total on an annual basis.

they're for ada upgrades, tenant improvements, or changes where it's signage or awnings and the like. and rooftop equipment like boilers, chillers. elevator overrides. those sorts of things. we anticipate and we've sort of roughly looked at the numbers, we anticipate that is going to reduce the number of article 11 permits by almost 50%. which is going to be a huge savings in terms of our time that we can have those preservation planners then working on much more complex projects that are in our queue. that are currently waiting for our planner to review, because we have the backlog we do. and then finally, because you've instituted a historic landmark program, we would like the city sponsored landmark plaques to be approveded over-the-counter rather than the 20-day waiting period, because they are fairly

routine, the city is paying for them, so we don't anticipate controversy around those elements. so again, the specific language related around those code amendments. these guidelines are based on the precedence this commission has created over the last ten years and the secretary of interior standards, so an awning that is only anchored within the opening of the store front that a free hanging valance, that the signage is located in an area that relates to the architecture. those are the types of guidelines that we'd be using when approving these over-the-counter. rooftop equipment as i mentioned, looking at the overall location, height and

dimension of this equipment to make sure it's clearly not visible from view, making sure that low profile skylights are being used so they don't disrupt historic roof lines. and then finally, i would like to expand on what jacob said. it's not just for ada, but we would be able to approve making entry landings level so that a person in a wheelchair can have independent access into that tenant space. so there is a little more flexibility under ada we will be able to employ. that concludes our presentation. jacob, anything else? jacob has one small thing in closing and then happy to answer questions. >> just in closing, to clarify the changes in ordinance, there were three things. one thing was a couple of small

changes to properly reference state law. the second thing was actually to have a different operative date for the portions of the ordinance that deal with all of notification, procedure changes that i mentioned. those would not be operative until january 1, 2019. remainder of the ordinance would go into effect 30 days after the mayor would sign the ordinance if it's passed by the board of supervisors, that's to give the planning department time to implement all the procedure changes, and technical investments we need to make. and the third piece is to properly implement the changes to article 11 that tim was going over. we had those drafted in a different way. they actually fit much better the way they are listed in the reintroduced version of the ordinance. it will take those scopes of work completely out of the

purview of something that needs a minor permit to alter. that's why it was reintroduced. with that, that concludes our presentation. >> president wolfram: thank you very much. why don't we take public comment on this item? any member of the public wish to speak? i have one speaker card for richard frigby. >> you don't need to fill one out, but we'll have richard come first. hi, i'm richard. just a couple of thoughts. one thing, the planning commission is in the process thinking about, talking about developing historic district guidelines. and so, here, one of the things they said the changes would be minor to conform with article 10. they apparently think article 10

needs to be modified. so my question is, how is -- what we don't want to do is agree to something here and then when the new historic guidelines come out, we find out they don't agree with the new historic district guidelines. so my comment is, why don't we work on the historic district guidelines that they're very committed to and then after that, see if we can find a way to incorporate this into it, as to doing this piecemeal. so follow notifications, 20-30 days, this is piecemeal. this is one more layer of piecemeal to the process. so seems to me the historic district guidelines which a lot of neighborhoods have a lot of feelings about, should be focused on. and then we can deal with these "minor changes". thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon,

commissioners, i usually go to the planning commission, talking about demolitions. a couple of things i want to point out about this proposal. and that relates to you, because it's on page 59 of the legislation. with the new section 333, what will be sent out to people is probably going to be a post card. and i think that is worrisome to me, as someone who does get 311s and gets notices. i understand the paper issue, i think a post card and all these things that follow from page 59, in the beginning, all these things are going to be put on a post card and i think that's really difficult for most people who may have a concern to understand. whether it's a regular project or a historic project. a post card can get lost, overlooked. right now, if you get a 311,

it's in the big envelope. i'm not sure what you send out for the certificate of appropriateness, but i assume it's a regular letter-sized envelope, which is probably more noticeable than the little postcard. the other thing is putting the plans online. i don't know about you, but i cannot print out 11 x 17 plans from my house. most people can't. bless you. i think that's a really serious problem. and with the reduction in time, 20 days, it's not a lot of time, someone has to take -- within that 20 days, go down to the planning department, and see if they can get the plans if they can't print them out. or you can go to the ups store, but it's very expensive to print out 11 x 17 plans. i have more concerns that probably come up to the -- i'll

speak about tomorrow at the planning commission, but these are things to think about. plan accessibility and the size of the notice. and 20 days, that's a very short amount of time. thank you very much. >> president wolfram: thank you. any other speaker wish to comment on the item, if so, please come forward. we'll close public comment seeing none. i have actually one -- this a minor comment but one thing that jumped out, the notice, posters. and the requirement for a notice poster every 25 feet, that means opt ferry building you would have 64 notice post-ers. i'm wondering if that one should be changed to a building of 25 feet and less, one poster. 25 and 50 feet, two. i'm concerned about the damage to the paint on the ferry building, we have 64 posters on that building. maybe that one could be modified to be a little