because i've been in the dogpatch for 13 years, i've real he watched the site line and it's changed dramatically, and i've seen the waterfront from the ground pretty much be obliterated. and also, i've adopted 22nd and 23rd street. i'm pleased to come here because associate capital asked for opinion on what their proposed project was thus far. i'm pleased to say i'm pleased with their plans. the breadth and the depth of their communication within the neighborhood has been outstanding. they've done it, they've had multiple invitations to tour the stack and the parcel, and

they've provided the neighborhood with a lot of current and historical information i find very insightful and informative. it created a bit of a community just in their gatherings because they've offered to provide local food vendors and information, and that's been a valuable blessing to us. as the dogpatch association says, they've updated them regularly and enrique provides a very animated presentation, so it's very easy to watch. they've provided access to march management. the meeting times are very accessible. they range from the day times to late evening hours, and they genuinely seem to care about the way the space will be used and preserved. they prepare thoughtfully detailed plans. i met enrique in august of 2017 when i went to the smoke stack

tour, and i recall asking his team to really recall the beauty of the waterfront and really expanding that, and the development of the piers to look out, and he said he would research that. i'm very disappointed with the obstructed view of the water from dogpatch, and i wish more protection of the waterfront visibility existed. thus i'm very excited about his hotel plans and the associations overall plans to preserve and open up the waterfront. it would be helpful if the commissioners would consider further incentives to change the waterfront because some of the challenges are economic from the developer's point of view, and there may be some new creative solutions to that to help preserve some of those other buildings that are much more expensive to maintain, and i thank you for your time and attention. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. nice to see some of you. and i'm here to state my support for the potrero station as i believe this is a terrific and an amazing project. some of you may know me, i'm a native san franciscan, living in the dogpatch for 15 years, and i'm also a part of the dogpatch association as the membership coordinator. i'm here to speak for myself, and i've lived in the neighborhood -- sorry. i've been on the board for the past nine years. here's why i support potrero power state project. it has been very active in our community. enrique and matthew in our neighborhood for the past year or so, hosted some of the -- as some of the previous speakers mentioned, hosted numerous outreach workshops, public

tours, community events to engage and being involved with the community, as well as office hours at various dogpatch businesses. what i find exciting in the future is the future access to the waterfront, the businesses, and the future housing there and open space, which is very much needed. we all know that. and the historical meaning of the area. as a kid, driving 280 friday always overlooked the east and the potrero power plant, and i always wonder what would happen there as a kid growing up, and now that i'm an adult, i'm just really excited to be part of this change in dogpatch and in the area of the waterfront. like pier 70 project, potrero power station project will create future full-time jobs and public open spaces, and i thank you for your time. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. i'm keith goldsteen. i'm the chair of the eastern neighborhood c.a.c. you're the president of the potrero boosters association, and i've been the president of the dogpatch homeowners association for 12 years. i've known in the neighborhood of potrero hill known as dogpatch years for 44 years, which you can probably discern from my access. i'm glad to see the development of this site. i'm glad to see more of the southern waterfront opened. there's been numerous meetings, this concept of office hours where anybody can go from the community, can meet the project sponsor and learn about it and then take a tour and express their opinions of the project. i know there's still a lot of issues to be ironed out, but i'm pretty confident that this is a developer that's keen to provide us all with a project that will make all of us proud.

i'm actually excited at the project tower. i think a project tower gives us a lot of community benefits that we can enjoy. i think great cities have great buildings. i just urge our developer to build a spectacular landmark iconic tower, not some awful concrete rectangle up there. i think that may happen. i actually made my living for 43 years as a masonry contractor. i owned and operated everest restoration. i love brick buildings, and i hope that the developer can find an adapted use for some of the brick. i actually don't think those large brick buildings are good to keep. i see massive challenges in

trying to preserve and restore those brick buildings, but using that brick for some accents around the site could be fantastic. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. good afternoon. my name is emily pearl, and i am here to represent lundberg design, a full service architectural firm in dogpatch, which is about five minutes walk from the site. we are a small neighborhood business in the dogpatch neighborhood which has been in the same building 25 years and very about extensive experience in designing buildings along the san francisco waterfront. association capital has been highly responsible in the community outreach through their tours and workshops, with project dates and info readily available on-line and e-mail mailers. in my experience interacting with them, it's my experience

they understand the impact that a project like this can have on the neighborhood, and they're committed to hearing many voices, including those that may have disagreement. they're invested in the long-term future of this neighborhood. we think the proposed power station development, the massing, the programming and the adaptive reuse objective are a breath of fresh air in comparison to other local developments like mission bay. we have seen a lot of pressure from the planning department and other neighborhood groups to keep density lower which resulted in these single monolithic buildings with little diversity. this creates a noninteresting pedestrian experiences that honestly feels very suburban which i don't think really is an appropriate solution and it's honestly one that most people seem to care for. the proposed tower building, the retention of the stack itself, opening up to the waterfront and the conversion of the existing power block building to the hotel are

particularly successful ideas that not only help achieve the bottom line but honestly they create a variety of user experiences in the area and our developing waterfront, and it's honestly a much more urban and therefore appropriate solution one for which the associate cal tall team should be commended. this area and the city as a whole are changing dramatically, and it's our responsibility as designers and developers to react and to anticipate the change in a thoughtful, realistic and hopefully innovative way, so the height, density and urban programming is in direct support of these objectives, and we enthusiastically support the proposed direction. i also want to mention that, you know, no one should really look at these massing diagrams as really the actual diagrams of these buildings. they're only used to show square footages, and the resulting design and especially the tower element will be much

better designed than the picture suggests, and if they're not, trust me, we will be the first to object. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is led breznicki. i live and work in dogpatch the past ten years. been listening to the comments before me so i will keep things short and not repeat things. i am in favor of the tower, as emily said, it's a massing block, building envelope. the final design can make it much more exciting. there's going to be push and pull from an architectural standpoint, and having lived and work asia and europe, i've had the opportunity to live in various cities that are various types of waterfront, be it seaside, waterfront, or lakeside, and i've experienced these are greenery and

immediate, and i think both work well when done properly, and i'm looking forward to being able to sit on the cafe side table not far from the water and enjoy my weekend afternoon as a neighborhood citizen. and i -- they've been doing great outreach, and i think they will continue to do so. i think the project also has a chance to move a little faster than most san francisco projects, being a private property, not being under port authority and having to do endless studies and succumb to delays and obstacles. i'm giving my support upon the ground professionally and as a citizen, and i hope that the project can move forward, and we can actually -- i can actually experience the benefit of the project as opposed to read about it in my retirement

years somewhere else, so -- >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is ray hernandez. i've lived in the neighborhood for almost seven years. i don't have a fancy title like some of my neighbors, but i'm usually at all of these meetings from development, the previous, just lurking around and listening so i can really understand what my neighborhood is going. so for me to come out here and say something, it means that i really feel that this group is really caring about what the neighborhood is -- is trying to make sure is the out come. enrique and matthew have been absolutely great. they've been open to suggestions to trying to work with as a local artist to do

some historical things, photographs. and everybody has a lot of opinions and they keep on asking my questions, and i want those questions to continue and just i want to be one of the people in support of this project. thank you. >> president hillis: great. thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is philip, and i'm an architect. i've lived on potrero hill for many, many years. i'm very concerned about the density proposed by the developer of the power plant site. if built, this is definitely going to be significant urbanization of a scale that i

believe is incompatible with the infrastructure that is proposed and with the neighborhood itself. the character of the future of the city is at stake. that's to say our quality of life. that's why it's so important to be clearheaded about the effects of projects like this one is the city willing to address the consequences of such dense development at this site? with the hospital, the warriors arena and pier 70 so near, i think we're headed for real trouble if major improvements are not made to the infrastructure prior to development at this site. when compared with the city of san francisco, the power plant project would be about double average density of the city of

san francisco. with a proposed density of plus or minus 10,000 people, by the way, that is inadequately calculated using old standards -- over 21 acres, that means a density of 32,000 people persquare mile. the current city population persquare mile is 18,580. if we include visitors and shoppers at the power plant site, the population is going to be even higher. 10,000 could turn into -- easily turn into 12,000. as a comparison, i would like to point out that the bronx in new york city is very close to having the same density as proposed by the developer here, with a population density of 32,936 people persquare mile. of course the bronx has a large and highly developed infrastructure with subway transportation at its disposal, many schools, parks, shopping,

hospitals, and many other facilities that enable it to sustain itself. i know that it's difficult to grasp the density issue, but for a moment, let's consider this: the city of san francisco covers an area of 47 square miles. that would mean that if it were all populated as a density of 32,000 people persquare mile, we would have a city of over 1.5 million inhabitants. that is almost double our current population of 870, 877. can any of us really imagine what the city would be like with that many people here. i can tell you that's not the city i know and love. the developer stated that the -- >> clerk: sir, your time is up. >> president hillis: thank you very much. appreciate it. you did submit these comments

to us. >> clerk: very good. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> clerk: i'm a san francisco l.b.e. based in bayview as well as the program director of a nonprofit program whose goals are to provide internship opportunities for college students who are interested in real estate development and construction engineering. i'm here to support the project and also to specifically highlight and speak on the community outreach and engagement. it was stellar. i had attended two meetings, one as a member of the general public just to hear what it's all about, and it was just very much impressed with just enrique and matthew's presentation. not only the presentation, the boards, the information available, the walk of the stack, the walk of the site, and then coming back for more questions and answers.

it was quite remarkable. because of that, i reached out to enrique and matthew to see if through my internship program -- i don't know -- i'm not quite sure if i'm using this correctly, but -- [inaudible] >> -- every year, we try to develop a program to reach out to provide information on leads, sustainabilities, healthy communities, environmental, equity matters, and a couple weeks ago, i took our interns there, and they were absolutely floored. we are a d-10 based program, and many of our interns had not -- in going up and down third street in the community had not gone east on third, so it was pretty remarkable to be able to share that part or have enrique and matthew share that part of the community, for sure, the history of the site, and what the future holds. it was really remarkable.

also, the -- this has led to, and this trip in particular led to a lot of our interns wanting to pursue a higher level of environmental stewardship, in fact even going so far as wanting to get their lead certificate when they're an undergraduate, which was very, very cool. and finally, matthew, if i may is -- is a young gentleman and was able to speak really fantastically with our young interns in the same age group. and when we left, our interns said they wanted to be matthew in, like, three to five years, that they wanted to be in a position to lead a remarkable project in their community and to present it to younger members of their community. so i just want to thank them very much. it was a great afternoon. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please, mr. smith. >> hello, commissioners. cory smith on behalf of san francisco housing action coalition. we have not reviewed this

project yet, so we don't have an endorsement to talk about. as a member of sf hack project team, more than anything else, it's just great to hear so many of the community members talking consistently about how available they are for conversations. there's definitely a line between people going around and building housing the right way and there's some that unfortunately do it the wrong way. while we continue to have disagreements of the project, and we'll continue to talk about that, the lines of communication are open. so i congratulate them on their work and much more work to go. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. any additional public comment on this item? miss clark? >> just hung up on him. hi. laura clark, yimby action.

they have done a massive amount of community engagement. they're having open hours. it's very irritating, and so i would like to congratulate them on having done the process the way san francisco maybe idealized. we are seeing the form of the process, the most wonderful process that ever has been had. they are doing a level of engagement that sickens me, so i'm very -- congratulations. i would like to say that there's other issues that have been brought up, like how we're going to be 1.5 million people one day. that sounds great. more people living in our wonderful city. we can, in fact, grow to accommodate this kind of a wonderful future of opportunity for all. there are going to be a lot of great jobs that are going to be brought on-line by this project, and that means that we're going to have to continue to build housing throughout san francisco.

jobs-housing balance doesn't come on a project-by-project basis. it comes on a planning basis, it comes on a citywide basis, it comes on a level of doing all of our transit accommodations. we have decided that we also want to grow our jobs here, and that means this body is going to have to make sure that we do a lot of housing, as well, not just in this project, but throughout. the solution to the fact that there are jobs coming into this project is not to cut the height of the housing and make there be less housing come with it, which seems to be what some people are offering as a solution. i would also like to say that view corridors are not a thing that i would like you to prioritize. once again, we need to say that views are not owned by the people who have them. they are redistributed. a new view that is a view of wonderful new buildings is just a different kind of a view. it's a skyline view. they're in fact highly desirable by many people to get

to see all those twinkling ski, they're people who will be shopping in their neighborhoods and be creating more urban vibrancy. so thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you very much. any additional public comment? nope? seeing none, we'll close public comment and open it up to commissioner comments. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: glad to see the southern bay front water strategy filling in. i think it's time to see the different rising stars along the band moving in a southern direction. on this particular project, i would like to ask the director that just with the others, we schedule a special meeting with real detailed presentation of the plan. today was obviously the overview, the introduction to the plan. we had those type of presentations, particularly with pier 70. we spent a lot of time on that. we spent a lot of time on india

basin with repeat presentations, particularly as they lead up to the e.i.r., so that we really do the plan justice in a manner that reflects a broad array of comments that we heard today. many of them are in support. some of them raise interesting issues, but to be fair, to a broader understanding of all pros and cons, i personally would like to ask that we have a more detailed, slightly larger time slot of a thorough presentation of this plan. >> may i? >> commissioner moore: sure. >> so there will be the first of presumably several. you will see a draft e.i.r. soon, and there will be several months before the final e.i.r. comes, so we will have time between the draft and the final e.i.r. to give you comments on the plan. >> commissioner moore: what i would like to ask the kind of framework presentation is presented earlier. the e.i.r. is there to raise

critical questions that we look at. i'd like to understand the plan just for the nature of the plan, not yet challenged by e.i.r. or brought into the context of how we need to look at e.i.r.'s and look -- asking questions for the project. i'd just like to understand the plan in a better and more comprehensive way. >> okay. i just want to make sure you understand. the schedule is such that we're just about three or four weeks away from the draft e.i.r. it's just a draft at this point. i think we still have time within the context of the schedule to do everything you're asking. i just -- i'd hate to see the e.i.r. held up, but we could do -- >> commissioner moore: no, i'm not trying to hold up the e.i.r. i have an open mind in how i understand the plan according to its merit. >> president hillis: we're early in the plan. we're pre-e-i-r. >> commissioner moore: just engage everybody else, and i

think that's fair to the plan. >> president hillis: thank you very much. commissioner melgar. >> vice president melgar: thank you. so we're early in the process, but i'm actually excited in it. i'm old enough to remember the battles in this town of shutting down the power plant, so i'm feeling actually honored to be in the room and seeing what's -- you know, dreaming about, you know, something that looks really real and tangible. i am also actually not annoyed, miss clark, about the community process. i'm grateful, because sitting up here, it's been my experience that when developers do a really robust and comprehensive community process, things usually don't fail later. it really pays off, so i'm just glad to see it. just looking at the visioning of this, it reminds me a little bit of the old front waterfront

in montreal. it's a very similar idea aesthetically. they have some older buildings that they preserved, a zip line, and there's a ferris wheel. i'm really excite about it. i'm looking forward to hanging out there with my kids and this being a wonderful, vibrant neighborhood. i am looking forward to seeing what the affordability is, that 60% affordable housing is going to be built there. i was encouraged by the comments of the folks in the neighborhood. i think mirroring some of the things at pier 70 is important, but i'm really looking forward to seeing what's in the draft e.i.r., and i hope that this, you know, happens soon. thank you. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: so i did tour the site probably

about six months ago, and i encourage all commissioners to do -- to tour the site if you haven't had it yet. it's hard to envision with what's there now, what's going to be there in the future. we've got these schematics. enrique mondez is a group of architects that i have the highest respect for, because of the level of community engagement, and i think it's absolutely appropriate here because of the size and scope of this project. i encourage you to continue listening to people like you have, and i'm sure you will. one of the things i like about this project is the jobs-housing balance. it's around 1.05, 1.01, which actually is dilutive in a good way to the jobs-housing imbalance we have on other projects. we're at 1.75, we tried to get it down to 1.67, mr. switzky.

here's 1.01. we're actually helping -- given the size of households, we're helping the housing crisis in an incremental way with this process. i was in the back eating lunch, so i heard all the public comment. somebody had talked about a comparison between this project and pier 70 and mission bay and mission rock. i guess one of the things -- and i think this might go to commissioner moore's point, ee each one of those developments has some really amazing things. this being the last, because india basin, we're hopefully going to be approving the d.a. today. if you overlay mission bay with this and all the other developments, what could this project do better that these other projects actually did that we said wow, that was fantastic.

i'd love to see some type of a comparison so we do or don't have another mission bay. i don't believe that we do, but i believe that's a pretty provocative comment to say, that's another mission bay here. historic preservation, that's a great concept. can you comment on the historic buildings and what your thought right side and what you plan to do them, please? and do we have a letter from the h.p.c. on this? not yet. we will? okay. >> we will. there's actually a site we can go through. i do encourage you to tour the sites. the buildings themselves, while amazing resources, they're in a terrible state of decay. this is what station a looked like when it was built, and

unfortunately more than half of it was demolished. and since 2001, when the report reference was done, it sat without a roof. buildings that are 50% demolished that don't have a roof don't fare very well, especially when they're masonry buildings. just that level of decay, given the other priorities that we've heard, including housing and affordable housing, we were directed by the h.p.c.s to take portions of the buildings, and i think that's appropriate. in this case, the buildings are so far gone it would be more preservation than recreation, and we're starting that process now and would be happy to give you more information. >> commissioner richards: thank you. i'm happy to tell you that on my tour, i went in building a, and it's in a ruin. but i do believe that the ends are salvageable, and you can do something with them, probably incorporating them into a new use.

i don't believe the cost on rehabilitating those buildings is worth it. you can better spend that money on something else. i can completely understand the state of those buildings and what your plan for them is. i'm excited about this project. i wasn't around, you know, all this time around the -- the site about the power state. i lived in another part of the city. it was something that i read about. but now that i'm actually seeing it, i can see that this is going to be a great project that actually weaves this big, big piece of land back into the city. i am concerned that the pg&e portion of it is yet to be defined, and i hope that that negotiations with them does go fast and we can actually see what that's going to be like and incorporate that into project as soon as we can, actually, but very supportive of the project and the developer. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner fong? >> president fong: thanks. as you know, i enjoy these big movements, these big projects in san francisco that really have a chance to change the

landscape and the demographic of san francisco. good to see all the community effort thus far and that everyone's out here and engaged and has been given the opportunity, it sounds like plural, to be a part of it. like commissioner melgar, 15 years ago, i sat on the port commission, and one of the first projects was the closing of the mirant plant, and the written objectives of what they wanted it to be, and i think it's in alignment with a little bit of twists and turns, but we're here. it's nice to see the color renderings from that 15 years later. so i'm looking forward to seeing another couple years later and getting to a point where we can walk the site and enjoy it and feel the energy. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner ko commissioner coppell? >> commissioner koppel: thanks. i spent the first three days of this week in long beach at an

international electrification conference. we as a state and a city do have our own climate and clean energy goals that we're striving towards, and this is a good -- good example of what we're doing in california and in san francisco to further ourselves from fossil fuels and move forward towards clean and green energy. >> president hillis: great. thank you. and i'll just echo the comments my fellow commissioners made. i'm excited to see this move forward. it's surprising how quickly it's actually moved forward on the heels of pier 70 and the closure of the plant. just one question for mr. land, on the heights, how -- and i agree. i think we kind of look at mission bay as a standard that

we want to kind of improve on as we redevelop these larger areas in the city, pier 70, and now this site. and i like that you've altered heights because i do think that's an issue in mission bay. how did you land on kind of where this is now? >> so -- yeah, the mission bay comparison is -- we can go through it. we have a lot smaller block than mission bay. they're usually single use districts, and they're all pancaked along the same heights, and so what we wanted to explore, and some of our members of the community told us to explore alternating heights. rite along the water where our shortest is 65, and then we build up a little slope, having some 120's, and 180, and then we have a site that is a counter point, so we tried to have it low in the water and

have a mix of heights all throughout the height. we think as a staff and many members of the public told us it would be a real failure that this project gets pancaked and all the same height. >> president hillis: and the 300 foot tower, what do you envision that being as a footprint? >> yeah. the floor plate for that tower would be about 12,000 feet, and the idea would be to create something really magical. staff has really pushed us to do that as other members of the community have. as one of the speakers said today, you really just saw massing and having that opportunity, but we really look forward to the design, and when you see the d for d, you'll see what we have, the idea for the design. >> president hillis: i think this -- this, you know, works here, especially with the size of the site, so i appreciate that. and then, i got to tour the

site with you today, which was great, and i'd encourage others to go down there, too. i think before i left on vacation, i think we were talking about the tenderloin site, somebody -- that there was a church in the tenderloin that somebody claimed it to be the most under utilized site in the city. i think this probably tops that by far. there's nothing there. there's a lot of empty space. i think the potential that you have here is wonderful. one thing to improve on mission bay, there's not a lot kind of about what was there before, kind of things that hearken bark, and you not only keep the stack -- the smoke stack, but the power plant structure, too, i think is great. we got a chance to go up that, and it's a fascinating building, although not as some of the other buildings on the site, it really could be an iconfor the district.

>> my staff is working on these every day. while there's lots of examples of older brick buildings that have been used, the idea of taking a midcentury brick building and reapplying is something that's only happening in a handful of sites around the world. we hope to share the results of our plans very soon. it's obviously very complicated because there's no path to follow, but the early signs are very positive, and we look forward to presenting further plans soon. >> president hillis: thank you very much. i think that's it. any additional comment? all right. thank you very much for the presentation. we look forward to hear more about this. >> clerk: commissioners, shall we go back to the item -- >> president hillis: yes, the item on the consent calendar. >> clerk: commissioners, item five for case number

2018-006786 c.u.a. this is 170 ninth street; this is a conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon, commissioners. dori ganetsos, planning department. request before you today is a conditional use authorization to allow the change of use from an industrial use to a social service use doing business as the positive resource center. at the first through third floors of a have a can't building with a proposed area of 24,495 square feet. the proposed project at 170 ninth street is located within the regional commercial zoning district and western soma special use district. the project was reviewed under the community business priority processing program. the proposal will enable positive resource center to offer integrated social services such as emergency financial assistance, computer

training, legal advocacy, workforce development, and integrated health management services to its clients, and to provide office space for its employees. the proposed hours of operation for this establishment are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and most services are day services. no over night services are available. the department has found the project to be on balance, consistent with the general plan, necessary and desirable, and recommends approval. this concludes my presentation. i'm available for my questions you may have, and the project sponsor has a presentation to follow, i believe, with additional details. thank you. >> president hillis: all right. thank you very much. project sponsor? >> good afternoon. i'm the chief operating officer

of p.r.c., and, you may know that p.r.c. was formed recently by the merger of positive resource center, baker places, and aids emergency fund, and this was a merger that was supported by the city in a very big way. the board of supervisors and the department of public health both funded the merger, and we've just recently received additional support from the board of supervisors. specifically, supervisor kim and president cohen's office for the building project that we're proposing. i want to tell you a little bit about who we are, what we are and who we serve and how this building is going to tie this altogether for us. so p.r.c. and aids emergency fund were sort of the original aids organization. they came about during the epidemic in the 80's, and who we serve has morphed over time and sort of taken the same path as the epidemic, so we now serve people with mental health and substance abuse problems. baker places has been around

for about 54 years, serving san franciscans who also are in need of treatment for mental health and substance use. the people we serve are a range of lgbtq, aids, drug users, transgender -- i think that's a good overview, and the programs that we will be presenting in this new facility include the aids emergency fund, which is emergency financial assistance for people with hiv. it includes eviction prevention. the baker places case management services -- and these are for individuals who live in supportive housing off-site but come in to see their case managers, drop off their rent checks, that type of thing. we have a computer lab that'll serve 25 people at a time. the staff will be seated on the first floor, as well.

the second floor is our employment services program, which is workforce development, primarily, again, for people with hiv and mental health issues. and then, our legal services, which is disability benefits counseling, getting people s.s.i.-ssdi benefits. the top floor is reserved for administration, that's fund raising, i.t., administration, operation facilities, that type of thing. so the idea behind this merger was to bring efficiencies together by merging these organizations. we can't fully do that without coming together in one place. so currently, we have of the 80 staff that will be coming into this building, they're coming from four different locations. so right now, we're really operating all over the place, no efficiencies to speak of, and we can't really realize the full potential of this merger without having a building of this size.

i'd like to invite kate cochran up from ginsler to speak a little bit about the building and the design itself. >> surprise. hi. i'm kate cochran from gensler. been working with joe toohey and the people at p.r.c. for the last few months to develop this sign. when we sat down with them at the beginning of this project, they were talking a lot about how it was very important for them to come together in this one space. it's very difficult sometimes when you're spread out, publicly funded, you don't have quite the same access to public resources that other people do, so being there at this location is critical for them to perform their services. one thing that's really amazing about p.r.c., being now this group of different services together, is that there is this

ability to help somebody along different parts of the process towards setting them up towards a more successful future, where a lot of services are disjointed and give you only one benefit and there's not really a continuous process. so it kind of sets people up for failure when they can't really have a connected, integrated case management system. so for them to be in this one building is really crucial for the success of the people that they serve. design wise, we think it's a really kind of humble space that's going to be great for them. we're trying to get all of their people kind of access to -- to daylight and in their working conditions, which is not something that everybody has now. they're kind of spread out without really a sense of community, and having that is really what makes companies successful, when you're able to have that sense of community and connection to each other, as well as to the community

that you serve. >> president hillis: thank you very much. thank you, mr. toohey. any public comment on this item? i know we had the one. welcome. >> hi. good afternoon. my name is hugo, and i live right across the street from the proposed location. i represent -- i'm here to represent 34 neighbors who signed a petition against the settlement of the new social services from across the street. to be clear, we're not taking issue with the center. we don't know them, but we assume they're good guys doing the right thing. we're definitely, however, taking issue with the institutionalization of the status of our neighborhood as

a -- as a ghetto. it was the -- i think it's fair to say, if you've been working around the street in our area, it's the number one, number two destination for mental illness, the first, and for substance abusers. there's a -- it's also an area where you have one of the highest density of social services in the city, one of the highest density of s.r.o.'s in the city, and also one of the highest density of hooks and needles on our street outside works. this is -- i've lived there for about four years. this is one of the hardest area in the city to raise a family or to operate a business. finally, i'd like to state that our neighborhood bears a disproportionate amount of all

of san francisco issues that are well known, and we are pretty exhausted, frankly, to be a de facto dumping ground for all of the city's issues, and we would like a better distribution of social services, s.r.o.'s in the city, not just in our neighborhood. thank you for listening. >> president hillis: thank you. any additional public comment? miss parks? >> sorry, i wasn't going to speak, but actually, our office is right around the corner from this, and i'm really glad to see this kind of a use. i would totally agree, we have a large population at neat of services -- at need of services, and saying that we have a need is no reason to say we should build it here, build it there, build it everywhere. we have a shortage of services. please put this forward as

quickly as possible and also do it on the west side. thanks. >> president hillis: thank you. any additional public comment? seeing none, we'll close public comment. commissioner coppell? >> commissioner koppel: yeah, in general, i'm supportive of this use. and yes, we could definitely use more men cal health and rehab services. i think this location is primed up for it, and also to see the support from the supervisors, d.p.h. and the other offices involved, i think it's a good idea. >> president hillis: commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: so i guess question for staff. one of the residents around the building talks about a concentration of social services. i look at the aerial photo, and i guess google picks up some of the businesses and things. i don't really see any other social service agency in the neighborhood.

>> yeah. just from initial studies, we didn't notice a significant concentration in this area. >> commissioner richards: okay. that's what the map is showing. i completely agree with commissioner coppell. nonprofits are an endangered species in this city. they have to consolidate in order to survive. my husband used to work for stop 8aids project, and they were absorbed by the san francisco aids project, because the target is maturing and the population is changing. i completely understand the need to locate these colocating spaces. completely and absolutely supportive of it, and i move to approve. >> president hillis: commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: i'd skbru just like to comment on the appropriateness of the reuse of a building for that purpose.

i'd like to see it used for something like this versus another gym or something like that, so i am in full support. >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. there's a motion that has been seconded to approve this matter with conditions. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: so moved, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously, 6-0. commissioners that'll place us on item 12 for 2018-12 c.w.p., the downtown report, informational presentation.

>> thank you. sor e sorry. the computer did not want to open a p.d.f. in adobe, so -- now we're all good. good afternoon, commissioners. welcome back. i'll paoli ikezoe, and i'm here to present the annual downtown watering report and answer any questions that you may have. so this is actually my last downtown plan monitoring report with you. i'm actually handing it off to another planner, so next year, you'll have someone else. but it's an annual report covering the state of downtown. gathers data from a variety of sources on metrics relating to the goals of the downtown plan which created the downtown c-3 zoning district, which is the red area on this map. we start by looking at office

vacancies as an indicator of the downtown office markets so downtown office vacancy fell from the previous year even as millions of square feet of new office space came on-line. average downtown office rents continue to rise increasing about 1% to just over $71 persquare foot. our reports have suggested that this is the result of large -- large amounts of new office space coming on-line. retail vacancy rates downtown and citywide rose slightly but remain low, compared to many other places in the country. and for the first time in years, hotel occupancy and average room rates have declined, so some sources have attributed this to the renovations at the moscone center affecting the convention business. [please stand by]

. >> as our residential pipeline continues to grow, downtown maintains a significant portion of the units expected to be developed in the near future. there are currently 10,150 units in the pipeline in the cc c-3 and downtown residential districts. for the first time in several years, transit ridership appears to have taken a bit of a dip in 2017 with muni, b.a.r.t. and caltrain ridership all seeing system wide drops in ridership compared to 2016. however, walking and transit

continued to be the most poplar commute mode for downtown residents, and although the available data on commuting modes for downtown employees is fairly old at this point, we think that transit continues to be by far the most poplar way for downtown workers to get to work. we have at least one new popos opened in 2017. this is the indoor space at 350 mission street, and we expect a few more to open this year. and as well, i'd like to give a little update of the currently available data. so although employment data seems to have cooled off a little bit in 2017, the unemployment rate in san francisco as of july 2018 was 2.6% which is even lower than it was at this point last year. as well as a full report is

available on the planning department's website, and we published the data on our website, and at datasf.org, and i'm happy to take any public comments or questions after public comment. thanks. >> vice president melgar: okay. we will now hear public comment on this item. okay. seeing none, commissioner richards? >> commissioner richards: question for mr. ikezoe -- i didn't get your name right, did i? >> it's ikezoe. >> commissioner richards: when i said it, i realized it wasn't right. couple of questions. i read the report. you know, the new development is supported with the infrastructure -- all great stuff. throw a slice of apple pie in

there and we've got one of the best things there. when you look at the fees like the jobs-housing linkage program, what's collected. that's on all new commercial development, not a recurring annual basis on existing, correct? >> correct. >> commissioner richards: okay. so when i read the stuff pays for itself, and i see $66 million, which is a heck of a lot of money, what is the go to of affordable housing in the c-3 district? >> so i believe that jobs-housing linkage fee specifically, it goes -- it doesn't -- it's not limited to housing in the c-3 district. >> it's like fees developers pay if they're choosing to pay a fee in lieu of providing on-site, it goes into the types

of things that m.o.h. can provide. >> commissioner richards: when was the last time that the fee was looked at? [please stand by]