the corner. there is the rest of it. it's got two garage doors, so hypothetically could have been an a.d.u. in there. it's beautiful. it was beautiful inside. i mean, it was classic san francisco. now here it is today, all gutted, there is a side door, it's being made a single-family home, it's hr2. it sold for, not affordable number i know, in 2014, 1.5 million. so, you know, i -- that's something that -- i don't know what the occupancy thing is that the planners mentioned that's in the data, but i would be interested to know all those condos downtown, how many of them are occupied? that's housing there. is it sitting there for second and third homes? is it just somebody holding the money there like it's a bank? these are all things that have

major impact, and i don't know how you can find them out, but maybe you can, and it will help figure out whether, what kind of taxes you should put on, vacancy tax, occupancy tax, something to do something about speculation, how to prevent, i mean, rose is right. it's a lot of hr1 down there. and in the only bayview but in crocker amazon and parts of the excelsior, and outer ocean view and outer mission, so those are all neighborhoods that often have tenants, renters in them. i look at the online ads a lot, and not all these places are staged. you can see a lot of families living in these single-family homes. it's very obvious that this is family housing and it needs to be protected. so thank you very much. >> thank you. >> eileen bogan with speak.

i'll speak without notes. i, for my organization, i review the 311 notice, and increasingly what i'm seeing is what appears to be remodels for short-term rentals. each bedroom has its own bathroom, not typical in a normal residential. there is very little living communal living space, whether it's a living room or, which is apparently not required by the way, and i've asked planning what is to prevent this remodel of a single-family home from becoming short-term rental. is there a criteria that you do a remodel and you have to meet a certain criteria to convert that remodel to short-term rental, and the response i got was no. so, just from what i'm seeing coming across for, and this is district 4, these, by the way, decks are suddenly becoming very popular. all of a sudden out of nowhere, and possibly for 80 years. but the question is, we are building, remodelling supposedly

the yard additions to provide more than a space for a family, and some of these, even above a residential, a retail, it looks like short-term rental. no communal space or requirement for communal space. so, all this we are doing, is it increasing the housing stock or the short-term rental stock. and i agree with miss shattish about owner occupied, things are vacant, that are possibly as an investment that people don't live in that all year around, these are basically vacant as owner occupied that could, that are really impacting the housing stock. thank you. >> thank you. additional public comment on this item? >> hi there, sophie hayward, just representing myself this time. but this is a great start, it's

exciting and i read the executive summary and it was wonderful. and you are addressing some huge topics and will no doubt propose some big answers. i would love to make a plea for the micro nerdy stuff as i transition from thinking of housing policy to develop something, using philanthropic dollars. i have encountered a very small handful of technical hurdles in the code that are super, super nerdy, but i would love to have them changed to facilitate bringing private dollars into the mix. so, and i'm, of course, always happy to follow up with details on that. thanks. >> thank you, miss hayward. >> additional public comment? seeing none, open it up to commissioner comments and questions. commissioner melgar. >> vice president melgar: to that last comment, sophie, you

are speaking to my heart. i think sometimes we have from policy to execution, you know those details, sort of miss the big picture. so, i want to say thank you to staff, this is really an amazing thorough thoughtful report. you captured a lot of the data points that are helpful in this conversation, so i want to thank you, and also for presenting it so well and so readable and so accessible, so, thank you for your thoughtfulness and work on that. i was involved about ten years ago with the mayor's outmigration task force, looking at the, outmigration of african americans from the city. and i'm struck by the fact that these percentages are actually not that different from where we were looking at ten years ago, which makes me think that this is a trend that's been happening for a while, and i'm wondering,

you know, why it is that we haven't addressed it in terms of policy. so, i think that you know, we -- what i remember seeing ten years ago, just for that very small slice of the population which was african americans, is that the folks who were at the very lowest end of the income spectrum were sort of more stable in terms of their numbers in the population, the proportion and the folks in the middle were going elsewhere, and particularly true for kids past the age of five. i did not see that breakdown your numbers but it's remarkably similar. folks start having kids and then they leave the city and i, for my day job, work you know with kids, and so i can tell you that it has a profound effect in the life of the city and the kids that do stay here to have so many folks leave. the folks who are active and who

have the time because of where they are at in life, to spend in the p.t.a., community institutions that make up the fabric of life makes life poorer and just, you know, more difficult for those who stay here. has repercussions on schools, academic performance, life of the neighborhood, all of those things. so i think in terms of our affordable housing production, yes, we can look at you know, densefying areas of the city that are, could have more density. it occurs to me that we just heard another piece of legislation addressing neighborhood corridors and they happen to be, you know, sort of in the same place. those neighborhood corridors where there is very low density also suffer from vacancy rates and all sorts of things that you know, i think are related.

so, we could be doing more things than one, like talking and chewing gum at the same time. and the other thing as to miss hayward's point, i think that you know, we basically use one tool for the production of affordable housing and that's low income tax credits. we have also our inclusionary ordinance. both of those produce affordable units and that is one tool. i think that when i worked at the mayor's office of housing and we were producing, you know, policies around middle income housing, the thing we heard people say over and over again is you know, once people start having kids, they think about the future and about where my kids going to live, be part of the city. and restricted housing does not allow you to leave that space to your heirs, and that you know, when faced with that choice, a lot of folks will go to the east

bay, so that they can sort of plan ahead for the future and the economic success of their family. so, i would, you know, to sophie's point, think about what is it that we are trying to accomplish? can we be creative in the use of the tools that we have beyond what we are using now and look at what other folks have done in new york and chicago and washington d.c., and densefying neighborhoods, and producing other housing choices for folks that will accomplish the things that we want to accomplish. so, that was a long comment. thanks so much for producing this and i hope that this invites more of a conversation with our elected officials for wa we are trying to accomplish. >> thanks. commissioner johnson. >> commissioner johnson: thank you. so, i just want to echo, i think this was a great start. so excited to read this report. i think so often when we, you know, hear about the rhna

numbers or the job housing balance we hear about it and like we are great, and we have a conversation about it. question is what's next. i think the city is looking for a concrete plan, holistic plan, to talking about affordability to executing on it. a couple of things that really struck me. i think we have had lots of conversations about this, but the fact that five districts in the city are carrying our multi-family units is distressing, and we can't continue to have that and still have equity in our city. we have seen a hollowing out of the middle class and of communities of color, particularly african american, and i think when we take a look at this holistically, we need to look at our definitions around affordability. rent control is not the same as below market rate, for example.

i think when you look at certain communities that have been leaving, there is a direct link between access to jobs and good paying jobs and high wages, and their ability to stay in the city and so there needs to be kind of a jobs and employment overlay or connection, as we are thinking about a plan for truly delivering on affordability. i would also saying sometimes there is a false narrative that actually kind of played out today, earlier in our hearing, between needing to protect our existing housing stock and building new housing. we have to find a way to do both. because we do know that lots of folks are staying put in their rent controlled housing because they don't have any other choice. i have four friends with, who are now having, they are about to have children and their babies are going to live in their closets, and the rest of my friends who have had babies

are now moving and leaving the city because there is nowhere else for them to go. and at the same time, we want to make sure that folks can age in place and can continue to call san francisco home. so, i would like for us to move beyond kind of the narrative of either/or and work together to do both and i think this report really helps us do that. the last thing i would like to say is that you know, i heard loud and clear the challenge that we got yesterday, that i want, i want to echo my fellow commissioners brought up earlier that we have to build more housing and that we have to do it faster. and i think that we can really change the culture of doing that, again, when we have a holistic plan at delivering on affordability. so, again, i think this is a great first step and i look forward to working with all of you on our goals going forward. >> so, i echo many of the comments, i think all the comments we have heard from

commissioners and from the public. this puts -- you know, kind of stark numbers what we hear every day here that we have housing crisis and affordability crisis, but it's shocking to kind of see it. we think we are doing a lot, passing plans, we are approving housing, but it's clear we have to ramp that up and do more. so, it's good to get this data and kind of think about what it is we can do next. again, it came at a good time as the administration changes and based on everybody's comments yesterday. so we need to do more and it will be interesting as this comes forward and the recommendations come forward where that more can be, both on just expanding warehousing can be, and where, how we can do and create more affordable housing. so, i mean, some of the things

that we see is what we have done in the past 20 years, ten years ago is paying off. seeing housing built in the areas we did dramatic rezoning. so, eastern neighborhoods, market, octavia, rincon hill and others. so, kind of where, and we have trickled out more, we have turned out moreover the past couple years. we are going to hear in the b basin, and like treasure island, how can we expedite those, and if there are issues with those, how can we improve production of housing in those areas that we have rezoned. and really, what's next, right? we have balboa reservoir and things like that coming up. but, it would be good in this next phase and recommendations that are coming out, or where the areas we should focus on, you know, we always talk about the garry corridor, one of them. but it's not going to solve all

of our housing problems and where else can we look at as we build more and more, less clear-cut opportunities, so, looking at the areas folks have suggested i think is important. so, we have to expand the opportunity to build more housing and higher density housing in areas we may not have considered. so, i look forward to those recommendations, and then as far as building on more affordable housing, or building more affordable housing, an interesting example about the sali parking zoning maybe, you know, we look to other industrial areas or other sites that are not zoned for housing and give affordable housing a preference. because obviously they are going to be competing with the same land that market raise -- like what we saw in sali, and where

else can we do that city-wide. i think funding-wise, we tie affordable housing funding too much to housing production. so whether it's inclusionary or fees, i think we have to broaden where we get revenue for affordable housing. so, as a long time homeowner in this city, i've definitely benefitted or not yet, my kids may be the ultimate beneficiary of the value of my home being increased tremendously. but i don't contribute necessarily to funding for affordable housing. i mean, the development down the street may, but i don't and i certainly could and would through parcel taxes or income taxes, so finding other funding opportunities i think is critical to building additional, it could be a deterrent on market rate housing that we also want to see and produce.

affordable housing and how we build it or acquire it, a fan of the small sites program and would like that changed to the large sites or whatever site program, so we can acquire housing that's being built. certainly this has implications on the potential of cost of hawkins. you know, obvious reason why the rent control, i mean the rent control housing stock is limited, so as people move out, the rent goes up to market rate and no longer kind of sevens a lower income population, so, do we expand, i think it's obvious, you know, we should look at expanding what qualifies for rent control beyond just things that are built after 1979, if the, that's allowed under the reversal of cos at all hawkins. and i think that's all i have for now, but it will be great to

see those recommendations come forward, but i think we have to kind of think beyond the way we do things now, especially in building and financing affordable housing to come up with additional alternatives. commissioner richards. >> commissioner richards: so i have some macro comments and some data or micro, more detailed comments. you know, if, working for the city the last four years is new to me, i worked in private 30 years, high-tech, growing very quickly, and we had strategies for everything, we made the decision on thursday, we pulled data friday on the weekend, monday, tuesday, if it didn't work out we switched our strategy wednesday. if our product did not sell our stock went down, we all became poor and then out of business. so, it's greated we have a strategy, absolutely i think this is the way to go. the question i have is time doesn't seem to be on our side. seems like by the time we figure

out what our strategy is going to be, things are going to get a lot worse and then we have the strategy and the environment shifts all the time and the reason why we are in this pickle is we didn't have a strategy. allocation went crazy because we did not sunset it. all the high-tech people move into the city, we had demographic changes, people want to live in cities and it's much more attractive, and on top of it, a planner, an article in the dennis's corner when i do my commission comments, we don't do a great job seeing the future. and planner in the m.t.a. that said holy crap, we missed the whole ride hailing revolution. we did not realize 50,000 more cars on the street because we had a plan, 20-year plan and our plan was the way we viewed the world now without somebody telling us what the trends are saying. so, i can we need to add future here and figure this out, and

also contingency plans in the strategy. so, when you bring the strategy next year, let's not have it be stillborn. let's make sure that if this happens, this is what we want to do. if this happens, this is what we want to do. we seem to always be chasing our tail and reacting, and just because we are such a big organization, the city, and we touch every resident. so, naturally that's what happens. a couple of things, i mentioned a while ago i read in the los angeles times, winners and losers in today's economy, right? the coastal cities, the ee -- elites, the blue and the red. and high job growth, and everybody wants to come and live, and taxes, like we are gorging on so much good food and wine we cannot eat it anymore. but these kind of demand created

things have national implications, too. if you look at the state of the country now, and went to west virginia and talked to people in west virginia able and willing from a tech point of view to have tech jobs in west virginia and resented the fact that everybody is trying to move to silicon valley, and that's the representative in congress for silicon valley. so, winners here and losers nationally. we want to be the big winners, we attract the big demand. i think it's a supply and demand problem. you can put a call center work in west virginia and hope and opportunities, and maybe not behave the way they did in the last election, and problems, personal observation. i go back to where i come from in pennsylvania, and i hear the resentment and i hear all the time in west virginia, 30 miles away. a couple of the other issues, if

we -- we are going to -- if we -- we have to figure out how to not have displacement, and i wish everybody could will their house to a non-profit and build affordable housing, it's going to take an awful lot of time. but, as i mentioned before, so many people in single-family homes are renters, not covered under rent control. there are portions of rent control that they are not covered under, but certainly not the price portion, where you can raise the rent to an astronomical left. so the cost of hawkins repeal, elephant in the room. when you did your survey of the renters, did they include people in condos and single-family homes? ok. so, understanding how many renters are in those richmond sunset, in the single-family homes is key. because those are people when you start having development pressure on those properties, displacement pressure goes up. we see that in the mission, south of market, everywhere.

so, if we want to have density and development, we need to balance it with not having a lot of dismracht. somebody mentioned vacancy rate. we had, when i first came on the commission, the staff did a study, about 25,000 vacant units. some people in the community said well, that's a rounding error. a hell of a lot of units when the mayor says he wants to build 5,000 a year. 10,000 were not explained, the other 15 were. so, vacant issues needs to be discussed. i think the other issue, and kind of jobs-housing fit, we have this nexus study, for every market rate unit, .35 to .4 of b.m.r. unit. what's your strategy around that?

>> i said wouldn't it be great if the price started going down? and they said we would not be able to build with construction cost the way they are and rents falling. things do not pencil up. and i keep coming up with this.

there is a point where a construction of a unit, at i heard last it was around $900,000, which i really can't believe. at a certain point, capital doesn't flow into building housing. it is just not possible. we need to figure out, we need to unlock that rubiks cube of at what point will housing get built with a reasonable profit? we keep hearing things are being infeasible. the construction cost will stay high and nothing will get built. that is another big issue. i think a couple of other things, before i ask a couple of detailed questions, there are a lot of things that are cost associated with housing and stability. not just dollars and cents. alameda county, the health department did housing and stability housing. high blood pressure. people who drink. they have all kinds of heart disease. i think you need to include

something around with those other socioeconomic and health costs are. not just dollars and cents. if you are going to bed every night and you are stressed out as hell because you think you will be evicted. that is a huge cost if you end up in the emergency room with a heart attack. a couple of things i took away on page 3, you know, targets do not affect existing challenges et cetera. all of these bullet points are spot on. it doesn't seem like the market itself can solve all the problems as fast as we need it to. i mean this is a 100 year problem if you want the markets to be solved. we have to step in and do something. stepping in and doing something. it is an interesting point logically where it makes sense. i have friends who have moved into dumpy apartment buildings up in twin peaks. and deferred maintenance and nothing works. the wiring is hanging on the wall. they are still getting $3,500 for a one-bedroom.

it should be $1,000 but it is not. the demand is so high. this whole thing about filtering logically makes sense, but when you look at what is happening, i don't see it. buildings built in the sixties and nothing has been done on them are still commanding high prices. i do not call that filtering. they should be 50 years and starting to be cheaper. i think the big elephant in the room is in your report just as there are $140,000 -- i'm sorry, 140,000 existing capacity to build units in the current zoning. why, at the rate of return that we get, especially on nonhigh-rise construction, balloon it construction up to 8e building? i mean that's a big question here. a big need to. it is one of the biggest questions in the room. for that very reason. if we can unlock some of those 140,000 units, it can go a long

way into making a dent in the issue that we have had here on supply and demand imbalance. on page 2, sorry two of the report that was not on the packet, in 2015, almost 100,000 of san francisco's 60,000 rent-controlled units which includes units that would be rented at rates affordable in less than 80% a.m.i. in 199,040,000 of those were affordable. there was a 28% decrease. was it turn over? was a people dying? i did not get the benefit of having the entire report. maybe that is in there somewhere. that was something that struck me. units rented in the previous two years show the erosion of the rent-controlled stock because we do have vacancy control. i mean as soon as -- when

somebody leaves the unit, the landlord can increase the rent. so the units that remain affordable from that time are the units that people have been living in for a long time. >> you are seeing the tenure of people. you have -- i have a friend who has lived in his place 18 years and he can't move anywhere else. we joke with him that he will die and be a skeleton there because he will be 90 and still be in the same place. i feel really bad for him because he really needs to move somewhere else and he just can't. he is in a studio. on page 3, less than two years of somebody earning 30% of the a.m.i. -- i am trying to understand what kind of market rate units that would be. on page 3. the top rate, figure two. assess somebody less than two years earning 30% of the a.m.i. without me because they had a subsidy? >> the issue with the census

analysis that we did as there is no way to sort out what is a bmr unit and what is not. this is just an approximation of what the rent-controlled stock is. that include some older multifamily deed restricted affordable units. >> so a lot of these are percents and we have numbers here pick figure three on the same page shows there is a big jump in 20,000 units in units built before 1980. affordable income level in san francisco. 1990 had a jump up in the year 2,000. i am trying to understand why that is. it drops back down in 2,005 and 2010 and 2015. >> those are the units that had been recently rented. rented in the previous two years. it could be that in 1990, there were more units rented in the previous two years than in 2,000. one of the things that the chart

shows is the number of units that are occupied by people who moved recently is going down. it is to the point where one of our commenters made that fewer of those units are turning around because people are staying in the units longer. >> and i think that's a really interesting thing. with the cost on the ballot and the potential for it to pass on the potential for people to react, it is an interesting proposition. i think we need to look economically what it could do and unintended consequences, benefits, drawbacks and if were that to happen -- if that were to happen, i would look at that in the strategies for next summer as well. one last thing. this looks like a microcosm of what the mission action plan 2020 is. where the mission got up and they had all these different issues. stability of the community, prices and all that. they had a 600 line spreadsheet from a strategy point of view that they can do for the mission. that is something that you would be benefited to look at as a

starting point. lastly, to the folks who are out in the audience who want to rezone the west side, it happened on the ballots because the mission folks put it there and they asked the voters, do you want to have a market rate stopping the most -- in the mission creep the voters said no. why don't you have an initiative that says it should be ups on the west side? may be even if it is advisory, it would tell us what the direction of the city is going. [laughter] >> i will sign it. >> you know, back to commissioner johnson's point, sometimes in this discussion around affordable housing, we tend to get caught up in narratives that are dichotomies. either or. it does not have to be that way. i wanted to point that out, you know, when we say affordable housing, it does not mean what

we have right now only. it can be a more expansive definition. so when you say intensify the west side, it does not mean somebody will put it 80-foot building next year single family home. can, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that. i think that, you know, for example,, new york. they offer financing for homeowners to rehabilitate their properties and add one or two units and it has restrictions on that money. it is cheaper money that you can get that wells fargo bank and in exchange you have to go take training to how should be a good landlord and, you know, followed the rent control. for example. that is something we don't do in san francisco. it could be a way to intensify places and add more affordable housing. my point is, it does not have to be either or when we say affordable housing. it does not have to be so

restricted produced by a nonprofit housing developers of 50 units, you know, next to single-family homes. it can be other things as well, just like a co-op, you know, itt does not have to be a small sight to, you know, produce a unit. it could be 50 units or 60 units. we haven't done co-op housing since the 1960s in san francisco. there are ways of producing middle income and lower income housing that we are not exploring. there are reasons for that. you know, i think that having these definitions be so rigid and getting to these either or discussions impedes our progre progress. and being more creative and expensive about solving this complicated issue. it is not just one thing. it is many things. in looking at the whole spectrum and looking at it more broadly would benefit us.

>> just a question. commissioner richards has brought this up. the hundred and 40,000 units that we could build here under the current zoning, where does that number come from? what is that not berkeley. >> that number is -- comes from the analysis that we presented, you know, a few months ago where we add up all of our pipelines and all of our entitlements and plans underway. our existing zoning. it is an assessment and it is quantitative and slightly subjective about how much of our existing zoning, based on what is on the ground today compared to what the zoning envelope is -- >> would it count like a single-family home? it could be ten units? that is a nine unit equation? >> we filter things out based on the existing policies that are established in the city and we have very strong demolition controls generally. we heavily discount the capacity of any properties that have existing residential units on

them. generally, we would not count that net nine units. >> so you filled -- filtered it out. but on commercial corridors where there is a single, you know, one story commercial building, that could go up four stories. >> we use a rule of thumb to calculate data. typically, our rule of thumb has been 30% threshold. it is an as built condition and not more than 30% of the building envelope. we would consider that a soft sight. it is a rule of thumb. qc projects at the commission where the project is built down to 50% of the zoning. and if somebody wants to come in and add on or tear down, some sites have almost nothing on them and they never turn over. it is a general rule of thumb that that is kind of the median of what you will see over time. >> president hillis: oh, k. thinks. miss. >> thank you. thank you for your time on this important and complicated issue. this is one of our priority

projects. it is important to the city and we will dedicate a lot of staff time on this. we want to thank all the staff you are here today. we have both our housing staff and our equity staff. we think these two issues are tied and we will be looking at these more closely with both teams as we go forward. i also want to show you that there are in fact many irons in the fire. this is a project we are doing but we are also working closely with the new administration and working with our board members and doing fixes which can be done very quickly. we are not just going to weight until this is done and not provide you with any housing changes in the interim. we will also, i heard your comments. we will work on those comments. we will work to be expansive and creative. we will bring you a plethora of ideas that include funding, production, preservation and tenant protections. all of those are important pieces of the puzzle. we look forward to bringing you some big moves and working with

the public and stakeholders on these big moves. >> i just had one comment to respond to something that commissioner richards said about having a little bit of a future and having a strategy that is not stillborn. and part of our hope here is to not do what they do which is produce a one fix estimates. here is the only solution, and here is the only way we will get it done. this is hoping to be a framework so we know given a certain amount of resources and given certain tools, you know, this is how we can do it. if we don't have all these other resources, here is how -- here is a direction we have to go as a city. it will lay out all the options before us. so we know when different amounts of resources become available, or strategies are improved, we can mix and match to achieve our ends. >> also for the public process benefit, we had a smaller report available online today. the commissioners got the full

report which is closer to 75 pages. if you are from the public and looking at the ones available online, go to our website now. we have the full report and the additional information availab available. >> president hillis: great. thank you very much. >> i will put up the cards with the link over here. >> president hillis: great. thank you for the discussion and thank you for the input and thank you for the report. >> clerk: if there is nothing further, we can move on to item 13. 150 eureka street. this is a certification of the draft of the environmental impact reports. the public hearing of the draft is closed. public comment -- the public comment. for the draft ended on january 23rd, 2018. public comment will be received at this time, however comments submitted may not be included in the final e.i.r.

>> good afternoon president pret hillis and members of the commission. i am from environmental planning section of the planning department. the item before you is the certification of a final environmental impact report or e.i.r. for the proposed 150 eureka street project. the draft e.i.r. was published on december 6th, 2017. the public hearing on the draft was held on january 18th, 2018. the public comment period closed on january 23rd of 2018. the response -- the responses to the documents was published on june 28th and distributed on june 28th, 2018. the e.i.r. founds the implementation of the project would result in a project specific unavoidable and environmental impact on historic architectural resources. these impacts could not be

mitigated to below a significant level. the project does not require approval by the planning commission at this time, at as part of the planning department's approval, it will adopt findings that involve mitigation measures as part of the conditions of approval. in a statement of overriding considerations pursuant to the agreements. the planning department will require approval of the project after certification of the e.i.r. a copy of this certification motion is before you. i am distributing an amended draft motion which corrects the project description to include four parking spaces instead of eight. striking item nine b., since there is no cumulative historic resources impact and striking item number 10 as the commission has no approval action before you at this time. we would request that the

commission adopts the motion before you that certifies that the contents of the report are adequate and accurate and the procedures through which the final e.i.r. was prepared complies with the provisions. the guidelines and chapter 31 of the administrative code. this concludes my presentation on this matter. unless the commission members have any questions and staff here as well. >> president hillis: thank you. is a public comment on this item? no. we will close public comment, commissioners. >> commissioner richards: i didn't want to go first. i didn't want to see the revised project. they only took away a parking space for each of one of the big

four units. the commission when we were here before talked about a project or an analysis or some additional project of what it could be at this sight, -- >> president hillis: you want to comment on this? ok. we close public comment but we will reopen it. you go ahead. >> i will be honest. i was distracted by twitter. [laughter] so this is the kind of housing that should be able to be an easy up zoning. i would love to not incur the kinds of delay and costs. we are a year in and now having the blinding insight that this could have handled 20 units or more of housing. and for a developer who has been working with the planning department, and i am sure sending lots of irritating e-mails back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over that year, we could have had this blinding insight a year

ago. and maybe this is an opportunity, if you guys can guarantee the outcome back to a developer that they would actually be able to walk away with a lot of units of housing, and a guaranteed process that they will not incur additional costs. this could be a great opportunity to see a lot of up zoning on this sight. but randomness can't really be the name of the game going forward. we need to decide earlier on that we have these kinds of prime locations where we could add a lot of units. so, as usual with these kinds of difficult -- we are already at the end here and deciding to redo the entire project. it's really hard for me, is a housing advocate to say, please do something completely arbitrary and up zone this for 20 units. but please do something completely arbitrary and up zone this for 20 units. and then decides that you want to see that everywhere and make it a regular rule that is

predictable for the next developer. thank you. >> president hillis: all right. any additional public comment? seeing don, we will close public comments. back to commissioner richard. >> commissioner richards: we did one, ms. miss clark. we did talk about this already when we heard the draft e.i.r. that was how many months ago? january? this is six months now. i kind of expected to have the project come back at least with another call on this that says here is the project and here is the project alternative and here is a partial preservation alternative with the four units that are allowed by zoning but we could actually do 21 units, or whatever it is and here is a full preservation alternative on what we could do. is adding two more columns to show us what i believe would be the possibility, you know, i think david winslow could probably do it or mr g. could do it or anybody could do it like they did on for 30 main.

i want to understand what it could be. but what we got is zoning compliance -- compliancy for four units under each one of those units for 3,000 square feet. the partial preservation alternative gives you more square footage than the actual current project. so i'm very disappointed that we are still here six months later with no progress being made on it. >> president hillis: commission or more? >> commissioner moore: when we commented on the draft e.i.r., the discussion was far wider than just talking about not only using a joint density for the model of what the site should -- site should hold but there is also a strong historic components where we had a large number of people from the lgbtq community testifying of what this place, as a place of worship meant to them. and it was actually quite moving. because at that time, i simply

recall that we spoke about the use, which is not only an intensity but as also as a mission statement and it encompasses far more than simply housing. we talked about senior housing and we talked about lgbt elderly housing at higher densities and we talked about a whole set of other issues which i believe should be brought to the discussion when looking at your use of this sight, which would be actually addressing the issue of alternatives. and there is historic preservation and there is cultural content preservation which i believe is particular at trr in its current response does not address. i think it complements and elaborates on your questions and on your critique. i would share a certain disappointment that a response to the use is flat and by

policy, we would not expand the discussion of how we look at it. >> president hillis: so is a project sponsor here? yeah, could we ask, on additional density, a question did come up why i think this project is a good housing site and it should be housing. i think the problem is, it is our age two zoning. we could all look around that neighborhood and say it is the predominant density there is more than our each to. it but to -- it depends on which way you go from there. but i guess, you know, the question of, can we rezone this one parcel fairly easily. as the project sponsor open to that to get more density on this site? >> commissioners, i'm here from the planning staff. the current planner on this project. we did discuss this issue of

spot zoning the parcel with the director and with senior staff. that is exactly the issue. it is that the current zoning and surrounding zoning is the same. so that it was determined that it wasn't really a solution for this particular parcel at this time in this day and hour. >> president hillis: ok. is the project sponsor -- is that your take on this? did you push for -- >> i think we took the department's lead to, which is i do believe the right answer here. i completely understand the desire to provide more housing. were trying to start over at this point and get an up zoning is, you know, -- if that can happen in two or three months, sure. that can't happen. may not happen in two or three years. this will probably be four units

and there will be nothing for a really long time. you hear that a lot and i don't think that's a threat. it is just a fact. the process is very, very complex. when you have a staff that doesn't want to work with you twtoup zone, where do we start? we could file an application and we could be here in six months and the department would say we are not supportive. i don't know where to go with that. i think the developer here, the property owner is caught in the middle. to understand the policy issues, but i don't think this is the place to try to put in more units. we have a zoning compliance project in front of you and, you know, we have been working at this since 2015. >> president hillis: thank you. my inclination is to get that 40, you know, approve this and get the 40 units of housing. the issue is, is -- all of us were surprised that this fairly dense neighborhood is not even our each three.

it is our age two. that is kind of the policy initiative that comes out of this. it is taking a look at where the higher density areas and and where can we expand them into here. but it is a mid block site. there's not a ton of rationale to rezone and spot zone just this parcel. again, if we think this neighborhood can withstand a higher zoning, we should initiate that process, especially if there's other soft sites. it is a perfect housing site. there are significant things that happened on here, by the architecture and the building itself doesn't need to be preserved. certainly what happens there is important and there is mitigation measures in the e.i.r. i would be supportive of moving this forward and perhaps putting on our list looking at the zoning in this neighborhood.

especially if there is neighborhood support. i don't know if we have canvassed the neighborhood to see if this is an area that could withstand a higher density is zoning. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: two things first. i compared this to the fifth church of christ scientist -- christ scientists where he had this big ass building and i don't know what it could be repurposed for. we had the ability financial analysis submitted. i, in good conscious, could not demolish the historic resource knowing it could fit four units. you are not trying to build a tower in the back. you can get four units in there for sure with what the building already is. i did get a call from the supervisor's office and he is interested in having discussion upon densifying this site. i am not prepared to vote to certify this today. >> president hillis: commissioner more? >> commissioner moore: i believe that what he said is correct.

but the message to the department needs to be a different one. 331 pennsylvania street, two weeks ago, 56 medicare beds of much-needed facilities like it turned into a seven upper end apartment units. that is a stretch. but this is not as much talking to those people who by the site. before the department to basically be on watch -- for the department to be on watch when it comes to bringing those projects forward and discussing in ppa's what each side should do. they entail changes and they entail a whole bunch of other things including e.i.r. and the historic resources. i think we need to look for the

department to basically procedurally change how we move on these projects prior to them even changing ownership. ppa's -- >> president hillis: wewe compared this to a couple weeks ago when the church in the tenderloin -- we could have sensed that away with hundreds of units and how of -- of housing and we didn't. we continue debt. this has been going on where we get to four units of housing. if you want to apps on this neighborhood, let's put it on the list to ask the department to up zone. i think our policy isn't any parcel that comes here for development potential. we should maybe talk about whether we should spot zone at in order to get denser housing. i don't quite get that rationale. it is maybe it should be a

different zone. a higher zoning. but we -- if we will just deny every project that comes -- that is code compliant, and we will build additional housing now to fund a sum project where don't know what it is. iit is not smart at this point. speak to -- >> vice-president melgar: i remember having this conversation six months ago. we cited because it was mid block and the entire block was zoned that way, we were ok with having this project there. but i specifically remember commissioner richards talking about the parking. and so i too share the disappointment in not seeing the alternative, you know, spelled out like that. at this point, i think that it is late in the game to be talking about a rezoning this parcel. it has been going on for a while. i would support moving it

forward, but i also would encourage the department to think about both this project, and the fifth church of christ christ,'s think of it holistically. we have properties like this all over the city. folks are not as religious as they once were and there are religious institutions that have a lot of real estate all over the city and they are interspersed in, you know, lower density residential neighborhoods. do we have a plan for that? i am wondering, you know, if the burden is on the specific developer for that project, or are we being proactive and stinking of how do we use these structures? many of which are historic, you know, structures. so that is just my two sense of worth. i would support this. i don't think it's the best thing, but at this point, it has been going on for a while but, you know, i think we need to think about this type of project because we will see it over and

over again. >> president hillis: in one area we could have gotten an additional two units of housing on the a.d.u. legislation that was passed. 's said new construction, we should allow an a.d.u. in new construction. we could get two more units on this. i know they preclosed where there was an existing housing and being able to add an a.d.u. to its. if that legislation is amended, i think we made a mistake, and unfortunately i was opposed to it. not to have an a.d.u. in new construction. i think we should have encouraged. that is two more units. >> one of the things that the staff did ask us to look at is the possibility of a future a.d.u. in each of the buildings. it would add two units to the project and we did a feasibility study and that can be done in the project sponsor has been committed to do that for this project. >> president hillis: you would have to convert -- you would

have to build nonlivable space and then kind of twisted a bit. >> correct. we were in discussions with the staff and we were close to finalizing an alternative design where we would take the space behind the garage and that would be a storeroom, aren't -- under the current a.d.u. legislation. and you're only able to do it in a parking garage or a storage space, or nonexisting residential space. one of the proposals we looked at was to take the area behind the garage, make it storage and it would be deeded to the upper unit. and then after, i think you need to three years under the current legislation, if it is a new building, you, and you file an a.d.u. we have that avenue. and our client has been committed to actually do that. >> president hillis: may be they will manage the a.d.u. legislation to allow a new construction like this, or even this is zoning and put in an a.d.u. and you could put didn't want to additional units. >> that is what you saw earlier on the amendment to allow an a.d.u. in new buildings.

>> president hillis: right. commissioner richards? or did you want to respond to that? >> if i could just correct the records. these types of buildings that are multiunit, at the ground floor, 25% of habitable space is allowed to be converted to an a.d.u. in regards this project and generally. that did change last year and a round of amendments. >> president hillis: once it is built? >> exactly. but there is the allowance for that habitable space to be converted down. >> president hillis: commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: i am having an outer body experience here. this is a historical resource. were not worried about somebody process back deck. we are talking about a project which what alternatives that provide, especially one of the alternatives provides even more space. is a preservation alternative project with four units. so, you know, this was my community. this was something important to the lgbtq community. it is in our hemp historical context statement.

we are treating it like let's just push it into the dustbin and demolish it and build four units. it is kind of offensive to be honest with you. the other thing that i am having a bit of a heartburn over is we asked for some alternatives, even a sketch of some alternatives six months ago angelo and behold, we get this dropped in our lap with nothing, you know, it is like the commission has no voice, ants that actually, i have the highest respect for staff, but i feel their pain, you know, i am at a loss for words. i absolutely will not support this. especially when the supervisor's office called me this morning and wanted to have a conversation around rezoning. we have to move this thing forward to. we cannot wait another 1212 weeks for conversation. come on. >> we were all here