sorry. i've been working on this issue for forever. and i think it's time to look again at the housing fees the city's imposing. the first housing fee was impo impos imposed and it applied to office development with assumptions on the work force. and providing housing for the work force. as i said in my earlier comments, the demand for housing is changing as the use of space is changing. one of the things that i think is needed beyond the feedback on the transit center is are

your formulas working today on the housing requirements posed on office developers.

commissioner moore? thank you for the report and thank you for commissioners weighing in. these comments should be published. it is kind of sobering to see the numbers and how few we

create in comparison to how many we are losing. again, there are targeted districts in which it can't happen and then there are others where it can't. i'd like to suggest that we create a live ticker of where every day we can see in motion of how the numbers are going up and down and mostly are going down, just like a stock market. it is easy to do, the data are there. and if you tab them into those places which report on these particular data, you could see how it's going up and down. i'd like to see it in time sequence. this is only one year. this should be seen in trends over the past ten years and look at how many districts already have basically been stripped all together of the resources of affordable housing units and rent controlled units. i live in district 3 and they're huge swaths of neighborhoods which have been emptied out. and many of them are so emptied

out that buildings which were affected still stay empty. one other thing is the fact of expiring dates to entitlements on all buildings, large and small. tightening up small buildings with very short expiring dates and seriously tightening up those of larger consequence. we have large numbers that includes treasure island and the larger districts where there are resource and nothing is happening. my question is why. and normally we all go to the comment that the market is down and there's nothing we can do. the market for the last eight years has been more than up, particularly in this city. so my question is why are these things still hanging around and are not being picked up. and it's a positive discussion

i'd hope that this commission involves -- gets involved in this discussion, including asking the board of supervisors to join us in finding tools by which we can all help each other. thank you. i like the data in this report, but i don't like how we aggregate it. i think the percentages get a little odd and aren't the most telling. i think city wide they're good. but if you look at 116% positive housing and outer sunset is -295% housing balance. i don't know what that means. they both have something in common. not much is happening from either affordable housing or housing in those neighborhoods. so i just get troubled with how we kind of aggregate this and call it a percentage and that percentage means something. just in those two neighborhoods it varies wildly. to me, nothing's happening in those neighborhoods really as

far as new housing. in the units removed from protected status, that unit is still under rent control. when somebody ultimately moves out of it, if it's the owner. i just get troubled as we aggregate these. i think the data is great. it could show there's too many omi's and people are evicting through omi's and how do we control that. it also has this incentive if you build no market rate housing, it will show a great balance. and are we doing our job in that. i like the data, i think it's good. i think we put too much into how we aggregate it in this formula. i think the real information is in the numbers. i agree, a lot's happening in south of market and downtown. both affordable housing and market rate housing and not much else elsewhere. so where does that policy lead us to do more elsewhere?

again, i appreciate the data here and think it's extremely useful. commissioner melgar? i was gonna argue with you a little bit, director. i do think that there's a relationship, right, between upzoning and the projects being feasible. so, i know -- i'm so glad you're meeting with the mayor's office of housing and working it out. we discuss it here a lot in terms of the financial feasibility of a project. and often times with tax credits, a project is not feasible if it's three stories, four stories. but it is feasible if it's larger. i do think that this is the same for market rate units. i live on the west side. i live close to san francisco state. i think that it is really under zoned. we have a lot of commercial that's relying on very low density and not doing that well, frankly. because retail patterns have

changed. but you know, i think that you're right, there's not much happening out there. and yes, we could go up to four stories, but four stories might not make it. i am looking forward to having more policy discussions around this. you know, i think that it's both a combination of what ease feasible and what's possible. and also, it's coupled with really strong tenant protections. we don't want to increase the density and give people an incentive to evict tenants making the situation even worse. so, i do think that it's multiple things weighing in. i do want us to pay attention to the imbalance and be able to compare the rent controlled units versus new bmr units and how they're spread out geographically. thank you. commissioner fong? thank you. i want to go on the record and put a request that one of the

next area plans is b. while it's uncomfortable for some, if we don't do it now and do it right, it's gonna be not something that we'll really like at the end. i see it coming, i'd rather get ahead of the curve. i think it's important on those wider streets to be cognizant of other things like schools and senior housing and care. to commissioner moore's point, i absolutely agree with you that we are at a point and time with technology that there should be a live census. the ability to put census on different things whether it's birthrate, job creation, death rate and really get an account of where the city is moving and where they're moving to and from and how they're moving is all in front of us now. that may be something that the public sector doesn't do. maybe that's private sector or an entity that's able to provide that and supply the city or cities or region with

that kind of live information. i keep for some reason focusing on the problems san francisco is gonna have in 2026 or 2036. if we can get ahead of the curve on some of those things, i think we'll be better off in 2026. commissioner johnson? i just want to go on the record seconding that. i think the west side is very overdue. we've talked about it at a lot of different commission meetings. i know lots of folks are beginning to think about this. i loved commissioner richard's suggestion of a demonstration district and i'm curious to see how we can take some of these findings to inform what might be possible on the west side in our commercial district. thank you very much. thank you for the report. very good, commissioners. items 14 a and b.

984-988 jackson street. conditional use authorization. the administrator considering a request for variance. a few more items here for you, thanks. good afternoon, president hillis and members of the planning commission. this item for you is a request for conditional use authorization to allow a buildi building. project site is approximately 1700 square foot. mason street to the north.

within an rh3 zoning district. the proposed project would add a fourth story to the existing building with a net additional of approximately 1100 square feet connected to the top third floor which is one dwelling unit. the project does not add or move any existing dwelling units, nor does the project add any off-street parking. with the addition of one floor, the building would reach a height of 44'-6'. even though the underlying bulk and height district for the subject property would allow for a taller structure, the planning code requires approval by the planning commission according to the procedures for conditional use approval.

construction impacts attributable to the project. i just handed you additional petition letters. i think those were distributed to you just now. in general, compliance is described in the draft motion included in your packets. on the whole, the project has been found to be necessary and/or desirable and compatible with the neighbors for the following reasons. the project would make improvements to an existing residential structure, adding an additional bedroom converting it to a three bedroom family sized unit. it's well below the allowed vertical height limit. based on these findings and those in the base report, the department -- that concludes

my presentation and i'll be available for questions, thank you. thank you, mr. foster. project sponsor? first of all, i wanted to express my appreciation for your staff, nick foster. he's been an absolute pleasure to work with over the past year since i was brought on board and really appreciate all of the helpful feedback that he has given us along the way. i pulled just a few photos from your staff packet. i wanted to highlight three

adjustments to the design that we've made to incorporate comments from neighbors and from the planning department. first, i wanted to highlight this view of sort of the step down pattern on this block from west to east. as you can see, the building is kind of at the higher end of the block and the additional fourth floor does not break that step down pattern going from west to east. these are views from the street. what i'd like to highlight here is that the homeowner actually put up a temporary wall to show to the neighbors and the public what the vertical addition would look like. it is up. and as you can see in the photo, it's barely noticeable from the street view. and that is because it has been set back a full seven feet from the property line in the front. this is the view from the other

side. it's also fairly well hid from the existing railing along the top of the building. this is a view of the rear of the property. and again, the wall that you see there is a temporary wall with the actual proposed doorway and windows carved out so that you can see what it would, in fact, look like. and what i'd like to highlight here is actually on the right side of the property, the adjacent neighbor was shown the proposed design. they have a courtyard at the top of their building. they're in favor of the project and the design with one request which was that the shared wall has no windows and be painted in a light color. and so the project sponsor has incorporated that feedback into the design and that wall will have no windows so there's no privacy concern with the adjacent neighbor. and then finally, i wanted to

highlight on the plan, you can see from the vertical view it's a little bit small on the screen there. but the property on the other side, there's a shared light well there. and we've received feedback from the residential design team asking if we could maximize that light well to the greatest size possible and to realign it so that it would line up more closely with the neighboring property. so we've incorporated that feedback to the maximum size possible while maintaining a code compliance bathroom on the other side. those really are three sides of the property where significant adjustments have been made to incorporate comments that we've received. and i'm happy to answer any questions you might have. thank you very much. thank you. any public testimony on this item?

afternoon, planning commissioners. because of the shorter notice, we received the notice less than two weeks. can we request a continuance? you may request a continuance. you may want to address your issues here also at this point. or state why you would want a continuance. i am so sick today. my throat is really sore and the project coordinator, the person that organized this is out of town as well ch.well. do you live next door? about half a block down. okay, you have two minutes

if you'd like to further any comment on the project itself? two minutes? you don't have to. i'm here to represent the neighbors in the neighborhood. last november, i gathered this list. and this time we got more businesses, neighbors and the cable car people who are all opposing to the project. and since the time is limited, we are against the additional story to the 984 jackson and the reduction of the yard from 45 feet to 25 feet due to concern in earthquake, fire

hazards, parking, traffic congestions, health and safety concern and noise pollutions. and unsafe environment for the elderly and disabled during the construction. the owners shouldn't be granted because we believe there are good reasons the city set the limits and we should follow it. and there must be good reasons. and if we allow one person to go above the limits, then that will open the doors for all the people and will cause chaotic in the neighborhood. time up? 30 seconds. we cannot tell how much a person needed a living space. but with such a big building, i know that there's some garage

space. there must be space internally for them to expand and convert. we're concerned neighbors. thank you very much. thank you. next speaker, please? teresa, i'm here to speak about the jackson street building which is in china town. what i know is that in 2003, there had been an ellis eviction, which meant that four people had been forced out. with that, for the past 15 years, i don't know is anyone living there today? has anyone been living there? and what is this project really about in terms of there had originally been four units and it is now down to three. this is not -- the project now is not going to be adding

another unit, rather something that sounds more in the direction of a luxury item. again, it speaks to the loss of housing and again starting with an eviction, the purpose being to maximize a profit on this. or what is this really about? i just wanted to bring those things up. this is also the history of the building, where it is located. there were four chinese tenants who had been evicted. and so what is this project really about and are people living there now and how this project might affect them. thank you. thank you. next speaker, please. if there are any. if there's no additional public comment, we'll close public comment and open it up to commissioner comments and questions.

commissioner morris? i have a question. i kept your november report. on the second page in that report, you were speaking about if a building exceeds 40 feet high -- in today's report, you've increased that height to 50 feet. i assume that is a typo. that is a typo, i apologize for that. thank you. it would have been very unusual to see that height increase. this is an interesting project. we're seeing an increase in unit size and not adding an additional unit. that would be my first question. the upper unit is one which will enjoy nice views to the east and over the bay looking towards the ferry building and towards probably treasure island and beyond. my question is why is this not

an extra unit? my extra question is perhaps a question for both mr. foster and mr. tieg. i see a stair going up to the roof, which is required. but it looks as if this may be a roof deck, although it is not properly size d. we have been very specific close to a year or two that in these types of districts, we want roof decks to hold back from the edges from the property lines, from the front and from the back. and this one is drawn as a drainable roof. but i think it is intended to be a roof deck but not properly delineated. i would like to have an answer to that. sure. i think you're referring to the roof plan. that's right. yes, as depicted, there's a

drainable roof for which the railing denoted on the roof plan would exceed the 44'-6' for which there's no shown railing on the actual roof plan. it is possible a roof plan would contain a railing in the future if the commission is interested in entertaining approval of this. you could clearly add a condition of approval restricting any future roof decks. that is not included in the draft motion before you. but yes, we see this a lot where railings are added after the fact. that is not shown on this roof plan, that's correct. which would mean that we would basically call this house as a non-walkable roof. we would call it out as not being a roof deck. there's a big distinction. i would really like to avoid that all of a sudden it would be a full roof deck at some point and we did not catch that. as a condition of approval,

should we go to support this project, and i'm not saying anything to lead to that particular assumption, we would definitely restrict the roof being used as a roof deck. i'm still troubled by the upper unit being substantially increased and nothing else happening in the building. i'm curious to hear other commissioners speak to this. commissioner melgar? i would like to hear what is troubling you. i'm looking at the plans and i really don't see anything outside of the ordinary other than they want more space.

we weren't available at quick notice. while i support the ownership, this particular neighborhood is now to be occupied by smaller uni un units. this is basically at the edge of china town occupied by multi

generational families who live in very small quarters. to introduce an enlargement of 1100 square feet to a unit which is reasonably sized i think sets a different message. that is the only part of my comment that instead of adding an additional unit, we are enlarging one to extend, particularly because it has the view and everything else. i just wanted to clarify one point. the maximum density is three units, which is what they have now. the only exemption to that would be in terms of a vertical addition. generally in a situation like this, we would say what are the exceptional circumstances with the hardship. they have lots of opportunity

to go vertical. but here we have a bit of a mismatch between the zoning district rh3 and the height district of 55 feet. the zoning and the height together implies you want to go vertical with those units. that's something i'll be considering, whether it makes more sense to allow this level to go deeper instead of vertical and whether that's a better trade off and a better outcome. but from a density perspective, they're maxed. are you considering not approving the upper floor? the variance is required because the proposed top floor that they're adding goes deeper into the lot than would be permitted. but it's still on the footprint of the building.

yes. and so if we department have a conditional use here and it was just a variance, what would you do? well, we'd have to go through the five findings and the first one is are there any exceptional extraordinary circumstances on this site. i think one potential circumstance like that could be the mismatch between the height limit and the zoning district and the permitted density. there's also kind of an interest i interesting.

some of this raises the question, there was a section about conditioning this so that there could not be a roof deck. i think there's a potential to have a bit of trade off in terms of allowing additional depth at that level but not allowing any future vertical additions, which may not be an issue any way unless it was rezoned to a higher density district. commissioner johnson? just want to ask a pedestrian question of staff. as a new commissioner, i'm just really curious about some of the concerns that have been voiced by the community about if we allow this exception, what the long term implications will be for the neighborhood knowing where this is, thinking about china town and the character of the neighborhood. can you share your thoughts on that? sure, i'd be happy to.

in terms of verticality, the proposed addition is, in my opinion, a bit in keeping with the subject street wall. it's a little bit hard to see. but in terms of visual impact of the streets, council alluded to the set back that's been proposed which would help reduce that visual impact on the subject street. in terms of impacts to adjacent properties, i think some earlier photos were shown that showed the actual maximum height being proposed which is relatively nominal. about five additional feet above the current curb of the roof.

surely construction impacts are universal and can be felt. yeah, i guess i mean more the question of if we're not adding another unit and we know a little bit of the history of this property, just thinking about whether an expansion is kind of in the best serving of this best land use. and then also what long term impacts could be for others that might think of expanding their houses around the neighborhood. sure.

just a quick clarification with the zoning administrator. if i'm reading this directly, it wouldn't need a variance if they were to have a ten foot set back on the rear? it's more than ten feet. essentially what the planning code says for this site, for h

rh3, the requirement is 45%. this building is already 30 feet. for this proposed new top floor to go into that last ten feet of the averaging area, that's what's triggering the variance. i'm generally in support of this, but would look to the other commissioners if they wanted to make any other changes or amendments. it would be still in support of making the condition of not having the roof deck. i too would be in support of that. i think the design would generally set them back.

i'd like to see an adu in the ground floor, but i think there's not a ton of room there and there's not a ton of space. i would be supportive of this with the condition that there's no railing or roof deck on the top. motion to approve without the roof deck? no future roof deck, right? second. commissioner moore? that would be expressed as a noticeable restriction, correct? it would be added to the motion as a conditional approval and all the conditions of approval are recorded on the property. thank you. commissioners, if there's nothing further, if i heard correctly there's a motion that's been seconded to approve this matter to include an addition that no future roof deck or railing be included as

part of that development. [roll call] that motion passes unanimously 6-0. zoning administrator, what say you? i close public hearing and intend to grant with standard condition and also an addition to any vertical additions in the future would require a variance even if they're within the permitable area. very good. this is a conditional use authorization. good afternoon, commissioners. chris may, planning department staff. on december 18th, 2015, the project sponsor representing st. dominic's church submitted a preliminary project assessment application proposing the demolition of the existing three story school building on the southwest corner of pine street. and the construction of a new

three story center including a parish hall, church offices and child care facilities above a below grade parking garage. at that time, the project also included a four story residential building on the corner of pine and pierce streets also above a sub surface parking garage. the gothic revival school building was constructed in 1929 six years after the construction of the st. dominic's church building. the designing is contributed to architect arnold constable between 1923-1929. these are brothers best known for their buildings that they designed for the roman catholic diocese in seattle. at their peak, they constructed projects in states along the west coast. st. dominic's church and the

school building appear to be the only buildings designed by the brothers in san francisco. for that reason, it has been determined by the planning department that the school being is a historic resource deemed to be individually eligible for listing in the california register of historical resources. in the department's ppa response letter, planning staff recommended that the project sponsor team retain the existing school building and find a suitable, adaptive solution to meet the programing needs while at the same time retaining unique architectual character. on june 14th, 2017, the project sponsor submitted conditional use authorization and planned

unit development applications proposing the same project submitted for the ppa, including the demolition of the school building and the construction of the pastoral center in its place and the four story residential building on the corner of pine and pierce streets. on december 19th, 2017, a revised project was submitted xh eliminated the residential component originally proposed for the vacant portion of the lot siting the city's development fees as a reason for the change. the revised project now proposes only the demolition of the school building and the construction of the new pastoral center. since the proposed expansion of a religious institution requires conditional use authorization, the commission must find that the project is necessary and desirable and consistent with the goals and objectives of the general plan. one of the city's eight general plan priority policies is the preservation of landmarks and historic buildings. planning staff recommends that

the commission disapprove the project on the basis that the project would demolish a known historic resource that has been deemed individually eligible for listing on the california register of historical places, as it represents the work of a master architect and presents a

>> how would the commission indicate their intent to approve the proposed project or provide support for alternate project. this would have to be continued. this concludes my presentation. >> thank you project sponsor? >> commissioners president hillis and members of the commission. >> this was purchase in 1963.

this happens to be the fourth church to be built on that site and completed in 1928 and still standing. the church itself which is the subject of the discussion today with the home bases for the churches as well as the parish community and out rear activities that the church does. the church's primary outreach submission is helping the poor and disadvantaged through a series of programs that include county jail, lima center, consolation and grief ministries, a sandwich system that delivers foot and a social justice ministry. the existing facilities on the site that out lived their useful life. without expansion they would be

unable to have the outreach ministries. after working on this for year it is planning staff informed they would no longer be processing application and would be canceling the application. that didn't seem right to us. the san francisco code makes it clear that applications are supposed to be completed to submission. we are asking you to please not close the project. as we stand before you today. we can't ask you to approve the project but we find it difficult to find out how you could disprove it either.

we are not being given the opportunity to build a complete project. when the process is done, it will be time to make serious decisions about this site, but those decisions are yours and not the staff and with a complete eir in front of you, you will have a full project design, discussion of impacts on the resource, discussion of economic feasibility issues and critically important a series of project alternatives as required bylaw that will reduce the impacts of the proposed demolition. in other words, there will be alternatives that include saving some of all of this building and at that time you will have the opportunity to approve the project, approve one of the alternatives or modify. since we are not done with the eir you don't have the ability to make any of those decisions today. this is what the se qua process is supposed to be about.

it comes first and it's got to be complete. it's a process designed to educate the public and decision makes about the environmental process of a project. eir is required by seqa. it's at the heard of our decision making process in san francisco and we ask that you continue this matter for about six month. we would love to see how far we can get in six months and possibly be back in front of you that quickly. we do ask that you will continue the manner and process the application in accord dance with the code. >> you are asking for continuance on this? >> in addition to asking you to process the application as required bylaw. it could be six months, nine months, however much time you think to