broader mandate of resilience planing in san francisco extends far beyond the public infrastructure portfolio to the whole built environment and to our community's preparedness as well. our resilience planning includes efforts like the hazard and climate resilience plan, a first of its kind integrate effort to address the risks from acute hazards and slower moving disasters from climate change. that is coming together this year. and then balancing all of that with the threats from heat, drought, conflagration and smoke intensifying ands the most acute natural stlet earth quaix. on that front, o.r.c. coordinates the earthquake safety implementation program. what we're here to talk about today is the recently completed tall buildings study. you'll be hearing from isa and david of the applied technology council. that is a nonprofit that brings engineering experts together to mitigate the effects of natural and other has arts on the built environment. a.t.c. is the author of the report before you and i'll take

a moment here to give a little context for the report. so, isa, the earthquake safety implementation program of which this was a part was developed as the work plan for the cap study. the community action plan for seismic safety. in 2011. that is a 30-year work plan. working through the tasks, the city recognized that some building times would need special attention in order to make all that planning and study and resilience more meaningful. and tall buildings is one such subgroup. their difficult exterior access, high potential for collateral damage and sheer size make them especially complicated and especially important. the city contracted with a.t.c. in 2017. this is the first municipal project in the nation to consider the impact of earthquakes on tall buildings. you will see that the inventory of san francisco's tall buildings numbers 156. but the recommendations

presented here could be applied to other buildings of similar consequence and use. this report represents 14 months of collaboration to close the data gap on san francisco's tall building stock. the report's executive panel oversaw -- who oversaw the study included the building of emergency management and the public utilities commission and chief resilience officer brian strong who regrets he could not be here today. stakeholders reflexing private engineers, architects, developers, community organizations and city officials have met twice to hear updates and provide feedback. this report is timely not only because of the headlines we all read about millennium tower but also because of the rapid pace of change in san francisco. that's the rapidly growing profile in downtown skyline and it is also the major shift in what and who are in those tall buildings and when and what is nearby and what the stakes of a building's failure really are. san francisco has led the way on many earthquake safety

mercks including the seismic hazard ratings and retrofit program. given where we are, we need to stay ahead of the game and this report will help us do just that. thank you very much for having us. with that, i'll hand it over to isa to talk about our inventory. >> thank you. >> i have some slides to show. >> ok. overhead, please. just pull that mic up. >> ok. >> thank you, heather. i'm with the applied technology council and i served as the project manager for the work, but as you can imagine, 14 months of work happens with help from a lot of people and our team is listed here. i'm going to give you a quick overview of the inventory of tall buildings that was the first task that we accomplished on our project and the reason we did this is that in order to study tall buildings we wanted to understand the context of our project, to understand where are these tall buildings and what does it mean to be a tall building?

we had a professor and his graduate students that spent a lot of time with cooperative folks at d.b.i. to go through the building plans and we developed a database. on the left, you can see there is a big distribution -- there is a lot of buildings in san francisco and we had to draw a line somewhere. so, we decided to look at buildings that are over 200 feet tall, which is an artificial line. there are buildings that are 239 feet tall. but just for our studies purposes, we had to draw a line somewhere. so we focused our attention on 156 buildings. again, because we're structural engineers we were interested in the distribution of building structural systems. they're obviously all made with different construction systems. this map, i don't know if you can see the tan color in the base is the -- comes from data assessed that's more

liquefaction soil. and we also looked at the occupancy of these buildings. what you can see in this little table in the bottom is that even though in districts three and six only, even though only 11% of the buildings are tall office buildings, they actually take 64% of the square footage in all of san francisco. tall buildings, this is pretty common sense, they have a small foot print, but they have houses a lot of people in their offices and in their homes. again, for us it was really important to understand the structural systems of the tall buildings and the colors change as time goes on because after the san fernando earthquake, people did not want to build with concrete buildings anymore until the northridge earthquake happened so they didn't want to build with steel anymore.

so as you can see, the modern buildingss are more built with concrete and dual systems. once again, we divided our inventory in many different ways. we looked at the occupancies, we looked at the foundations and we also looked at questions such as are there different groups of tall buildings we should consider such as concrete buildings built prior to the 1980s. steel frame buildings built prior to the 1990s and the newer residential buildings. a lot of the recommendations that you'll hear later focus on these important points. ok. i would like the now pass it to david who was also part of our team. >> thank you. and good afternoon, everybody. we have a very short amount of time and our recommendation we'll talk about will be brief. i'll summarize a few of them. the important thing is to

recognize after having completed the database, we did a number of tasks that involved structural analysis, consult twaition experts, dao*ef dieps into existing policies, codes, standards and programs and from those developed this list of 16 recommendations. you can see them if you want to follow along in the handout. it's in two pages. and summarized near the end of the summary document data from october. and i encourage you to keep your eye on those. while i'm only going to highlight six of them to talk about today. and we can look at any of those and take questions on any of them as you like in the time available. the firsts two recommendations are numbered 1a and 1b. they have to do with new construction going forward. 1a is about geo technical investigation and foundation design. so obviously of interest given recent historis in san francisco and this is to codify or to formalize what are best

practice both in the bay area and from around the world. 1b looks ahead and says if we're interested in recovery, maybe we need to be designing these buildings a little bit differencely than the building code requires. this is consistent with ideas being discussed there are san francisco and around the united states. so their recommendation there is to consider what should those performance goals be. if we're going to go above code and we did a lot of ant storm system justify this recommendation. recommendation 2c addresss the idea if we're going to recover, we're going to have damage. clearly it is relied ton status of earthquake insurance about which we know very little, particularly in these buildings. in fact, there are sometimes because of existing private sector practices an incentive not to have earthquake insurance. so, the question is we probably need additional study to understand what exactly is going to happen if we have losss that are uninsured or losss that are insured but are going to be bound up in

litigation because of that. to understand how much insurance we have, that is an important recommend case thating will guide our policy making going forward. an issue of interest in the post earthquake areas as well. if you have a damaged building, typical practice is to cordon off a street, maybe a length equal to the height of the building in every direction because we have a leaning building. as soon as you're dealing with a tall building, you can see from the slide, you begin to cordon off all of downtown. we want to rethink make one of the best practices for cordoning, the best practices for barricades and that is a recommendation being made to d.p.w. and to the departments of building inspection to do that together. recovery plans are important because you can't design everything perfectly and you can't -- and what we do with the building code with our design is mostly still about safety, although we want to go a little bit above code. but to have a recovery plan is

important and we think it is something that will actually, given the overall idea of community resilience and city recovery, that is something for every building to have. borp is a program we've had since 1969. our report is very bullish on borp. we like it. we would like to see it extended. one of the recommendations you may have noticed in the earlier slide is all new tall buildings should have an occupancy resumption plan. that is kind of an onerous thing to put together. it does cost some money. so, the idea of developing a lower end recovery plan is important and we recommend that on a wider scale. looking ahead to planning. something that might be more of interest to you. as heather said, the report is about the impact of earthquakes on tall buildings but we're also thinking about the impact of those tall buildings on their neighborhood and that is something that we need to understand a little bit differently. it is not the skoem of this report. but if you look at this slide,

what we have here is just for a study area as part of downtown, we look at every single block and lot and there you see a plot of the age versus the height of the buildings on the right side of the slide. the first thing you notice is there is nothing magic about the number 240 feet. we have a lot of buildings even in this highly concentrated area of tall buildings. so theress no magic to any line that we might draw and the importance is to funs we have policies that affect tall buildings, they'll affect neighboring buildings. so, this is a recommendation and kind of the new thinking about resilience planing is to be thinking on a larger scale beyond the individual building. with that, we're open to take questions on any of the recommendations and the report. >> thank you.

>> thank you, david and isa. with regards to the next steps as david was just mentioning there's nothing hard and fast about this 240-foot liefn so we need to keep learning and keep doing more. we are beginning to lay the ground work for a study that will take us to buildings of 75 feet and taller that is in the works. we are here before you as part of a round of stakeholder engagement. i'm trying to hear feedback from those who care about our built environment and have things to say about it ands that will continue. we've already been to the bic, boma and to g.a.o. here in this building and we are really eager to hear your comments and thoughts. so, neigh you've seen here, any of the maps of particular interest, any ways that we can make sure that this swork especially meaningful as we have a lot of plans already in the works a lot of buildings already permited, tall buildings rr permitted. how are we going to bhaik we're

learning about what tall buildings need to be meaningful as the skyline continues to khaifjt i would love to hear the commission's thoughts about that and what about our existing building stock and historical building stock when, you know, changes are so expensive. the risks are real and the costs of doing nothing extraordinary. i am not publicly commenting here. more than 30 seconds. [laughter] so, anyway, any thoughts you have, i know it is a ton of information. we can go back to the maps or distributions or anything like that and thank you very much for the time. >> thank you, ms. green. we're going to first see if there is public comment on this item. any public comment? ms. hester? >> sue hester. thank you.

this is a good start. but it is only a start until we start thinking about who is interested in it and who has things to say. the stakeholder strategy on 35 shows consultation with the business community. i think the environmental organizations like the sierra cluck and organizations focused on the waterfront are important as well. one of the things that i've noticed is, a, no one reads the technical part of the e.i.r.s because they're technical and they're kind of like, oh, we want to read other things. so people are not really grounded in how much fill there is in a city. there is an enormous amount of bay fill in the south of market and basically everything east

of montgomery street. fuel is more dangerous because unless the buildings are anchored into bedrock, they are more shakable. and as we have been creating new central market plans, central soma plans and other eastern neighborhoods plans to encourage the building of additional housing and offices in these areas, we're just focused on the amount of housing we're creating theoretically and not how, if there is housing up in the air, 24 stories or 50 stories, they have to walk down in an earthquake. i had to walk down. i was on the 11th floor of the flood building.

but walking down is really educational. and i want to -- i don't envy the people who lives on the 50th floor. if they have to walk down 50 floors and walk up after the earthquake has happened. so there needs to be paid attention to when we're creating [inaudible] in these areas, implications for not being able to get back into your housing for a long period. like i said, i think you need to expand the number of people that are -- i didn't see the port on the city and county staff. so, i imagine the port has something to say because they're going through enormous planning process as well. thank you very much. i don't envy you. but this is things that need to be done. >> thank you, ms. hester.

next speaker, please. >> ok. i watched the presentation also when it was given to the building departments. it's startling to think that by 2043, we're probably going to face another earthquake and one of the recommendations they made at the time was to extend this to residential buildings that are not as tall. as you heard ms. hester say, you know, people have problems geting in and out of buildings. so i think that this should also be extended to residential buildings that are not as high. and there was one more point i wanted to make. the bulletin that they want to put together is really needed. the bullet tin they need to put in the building department. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comments on

this item? ok w. that, public comment is closed. any -- commissioner richards? >> there's a lot here. it's amazing, honestly. a question i guess i have is if a building were rendered inoperable and we had to knock it down, do we have an expedited way to get another building approved at the same height, with the new building code? or do they have to go through the entire -- is that something we should consider? >> at this point, we don't. but i think it -- this question has come up and the departments is talking about this notion of what happens after a major event in terms of reoccupancy and repermitting buildings. the more imminent issue is going to be one of potential demolitions, especially when it comes to historic resources so those are issues that we have

to grapple with in this post-event scenario. >> one of items that we face now is a lack of construction workers. when we have to demolish perhaps a lot, do we have a contingency plan to bring demolition caous in? [s please stand by]

-- it's very difficult to build in the city for the cost and that is only more complicated when the buildings are historical or exceptionally difficult like our tall buildings. so thinking about how do we as a city make tradeoffs between some of our older and more precious buildings for their age, some of which are tall, if not 240 feet, and like what tradeoff are we willing to make in the historic

integrity of the building with its safety and security -- >> commissioner richards: i think that having this presentation to the heritage committee would be a great idea. >> that's great. >> commissioner richards: there has to be tradeoffs but i have nowhere to even begin. we want to save everything but we can't, right? >> thank you, commissioner. >> commisioner fong: i want to chime in and applaud this package and this presentation and applaud the administrative office for taking this in and bringing in all of the departments. it shouldn't strike us as a surprise. but as you touched on director, in the 1986 earthquake, part of the damage is that the city couldn't make a prioritization of what to tackle first. and it would be great and comforting, frankly, to go through somewhat of an exercise

throughout the entire city to go if certain resources are down -- and computer model them, just so there's a prioritization. i would like to take the opportunity to press upon that because the decisions under stress are very different than relaxed decisions. and as far as the high rise versus the low rise, it's a matter of life loss and helping the most amount of people that you can at a particular time. so, yeah, i just wanted to applaud you for that and i hope that there's more of this and other folks and agencies get involved and have a larger one-stop effort here. >> thank you. and on your point about recovery planning, one of the recommendation says a downtown recovery plan and that would be exactly to your point, about figuring out what we'll do and how to prioritize in advance. >> commisioner fong: does that include business recovery meaning power outage or a loss of access to storage facilities,

etc.? >> yes, the economic piece is a huge part of the recovery and making sure that you can just get to the building themselves if there's harm to a tall building that can result in this cordoned off area and what it means for the business community there. and all of the people who rely on the work. >> commisioner fong: okay, thank you. >> commissioner honda: you. >> commissioner moore. >> commissioner moore: the question they would ask and i may not have presented it properly, i assume prior safe and fire prevention is part of the discussion in what you were doing? >> yes, so part of our resilience planning and you want to talk about how that figures into this statistic particularly? >> commissioner moore: there's one recommendation about that and it goes to the point that the building code has special fire requirements related to the height of the building. for very tall builds, yes those are not adequate either.

so some planning around that and the idea of that provision is to provide some contingency time, back-up water supply to facilitate the egress from the building in case there's a fire from an earthquake. >> wasn't it that very tall buildings located a second elevator? i am not sure that became a code requirement but i recall very heated discussions on that subject matter. >> it's not a bad idea. in general the elevators in newer buildings are designed to be operational in some -- in a moderate earthquake. and the older buildings have not necessarily been upgraded. >> and the other question that i have is that there's a certain type of building and it's only hear say, and concrete construction which shows definite signs of aging. aside from buildings that have

additional other problems during an earthquake, there are certain code deficiencies that these buildings, although they fall in the taller group, are you looking at aging of the particular structural systems? >> are you referring to the concrete buildings? >> i refer to concrete buildings but buildings in general, aging with all building materials is an issue and we often don't talk about that. >> generally the structure of a building is one of its most durable aspects. structures, they do age and they do require maintenance, but in general the structure stands up and really the issue is not so much that it deteriorates in a tall building but it becomes obsolete. and what we thought was adequate 20 years ago, we know that it could have been done better, and should have been done differently. and now it's done differently. >> and the big elephant in the room is a contemporary building approved at a time when some of

us sat on the commission and it raises questions which, obviously, will definitely enter into what you're talking about. but at least many of it is very unsecure. it has an element of insecurity that i'm glad that you're being looking at in a broader sweep. >> it is a broader report. and we appreciate the uncertainty that case did raise to a lot of people. it's not really the subject of this report but you will see recommendation 1-a specifically is trying to codify and formalize the best practices for geodesign and geotechnical investigation. >> what you're doing is making it accountable and that by this study people will be more at ease that very comprehensive measures are taken to address the broader issues of the seismic building performance. thank you. >> thank you, to make a remark that i forgot to make both times that i stood here that it's important that people know that

this work is happening and the report is published and on our website which is onesa onesanfrancisco.org. where you can see the recommendations. >> can you repeat. >> www.onesanfrancisco.org -- o-n-e, not the number 1. that's our website. >> commissioner richard? >> commissioner richards: if i am a member of the public and i look at your 3d map and i go that's the building that i'm working in today and it's got a bad color associated with it, should i be concerned? because i know there's a list of addresses out there -- is there any level of concern that should be generated in any of these buildings? >> i mean, we live in earthquake country and i think that is known to everyone who lives in the bay area. but a lot of buildings survive

earthquakes. (indiscernible) and if you would like to talk about what buildings are designed to and what it means for life safety consequences, that would be great. to put the public at ease. >> you had basically the right answer is that we live in earthquake country and we have a city full of old and obsolete buildings. so, yes, you may be working in a building today but then you're going home or going shopping or your kid is at school and you could have the same questions about those buildings too and you should. and i'm not predicting doom and gloom for anybody. but we know that we have an aging building stock. we know that the structures are obsolete. i guess that it's important at this point to point out that the tall building study is a sub-set of a larger plan and there's a 30-year plan that includes good ideas for pretty much every building in this city at some point. and as heather mentioned in her introduction, the idea of this study was to recognize that some

of those generic ideas that are in the 30-year plan may require -- or actually do require special attention if you try to apply them to a building as unique as a 300-foot building. so that was the portion of this study. but your point -- your question is very well taken because one of the hazards in writing a report like this and putting maps out and databases is that you may give the wrong impression to people that these are the bad buildings and we hope that we don't give that impression. we are relying on people to actually to read things and if they don't read them, at least the commissioners and the board of supervisors are aware that we're not calling out any buildings specifically, but we understand that there are large problems and they can be divided into sub-sets. >> commissioner richards: thank you. >> nothing further, commissioners. we can move on to 13.

>> note after hearing and closing public comment that you continued this matter to january 10, 2019 by a vote of 4-2. and commissioners koppel and melgar were absent. and you need to acknowledge that you have reviewed the previous hearing and materials. >> i'll make a motion to recuse myself. >> let's do that now. >> i recuse myself. i have a business relationship. >> you can ask for a motion. >> i can make a motion that we allow commissioner richards to recuse himself as he has a business relationship. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners on that motion to recuse, commissioner richards and commissioner fong. and commissioner koppel. and commissioner richards and commissioner melgar. and president hillis.

that passes unanimously 5-0. >> good afternoon, president hillis and commissioners, the case before you is for the legalization of the existing real estate brokage doing business as "the agency." within approximately 103-square foot tenant space at the ground floor of a three story mixed use building on. november 29, 2018, the case was continued to today's hearing with the request for the 10ants of the applicant/zoner. and the project sponsor has received 50 letters in support of the project and 33 letters in opposition of the project. and eight were received after the publication of the packet and since the last public hearing on november 29, 2018. and additionally five additional correspondence was received during the last hearing which reiterated previously provided

comments and concerns from the public. the department does recommend approval with conditions and believes that the project is necessary and desirable for the following reasons: the department finds that the project is on balance consistent with the objectives and the policies of the plan and meets all applicable policy codes and it will enhance the neighborhood, and the project will not displace an existing business but rather provide new business and job opportunities for the neighborhood. this concludes the staff's presentation and i'm available for any questions. >> okay, thank you, project sponsor? >> since this is the second time that we have heard this item we will limit your presentation to three minutes and then public comment to one minute. >> (indiscernible). >> there's a lot of paperwork out there and there was specific things that you guys had wanted

to ask me when you were here. so i have brought those items for you with a bullet point just so i can answer all of the concerns that came up. and i'm rachel swan, by the way. >> okay. >> in case that wasn't obvious. >> okay, so go ahead. you'll have three minutes. i wanted to keep it simple for you guys and explain where we were. i know that there's alternative facts and rumors about us trying to circumvent and move in in the middle of the night into the space. and that's not accurate on what happened. so i wanted to set that record straight with you guys today. so in august 2016, i actually was having a sub-lease drafted and a first american title space in noe valley, and i actually submitted my l.o.i. and exhibit number 1, if you take a look. you can see that the agent said

that, hey, we're drafting your sub-lease for this space and we're ready for you. i walked around the corner and i was so excited and i was going to get my dog to work every day and i live a block away and own my house there. and i went into the olive oil place and i told the ladies that worked there, i had sold a house for them previously and we are friends, and i said that i'm super excited. they said that there's a place on the corner that is open and we could move in there together and it's such a great location. and i said that i don't think that we could do that because it's all retail. and she said i don't think that is the case and i'll talk to -- his name was edgar, someone who had helped her with her office space. and to see if that was something that was possible. she subsequently talked to him and he said that as long as i was under a certain percentage that i could be an accessory use and as long as the main use was retail, that was fine. and i don't know if it was 25%

or 33%, a small number like that. and so on august 30th we jointly submitted an l.o.i. to the landlord, that is your exhibit 2, you will see both of our names on that l.o.i. and we also let the landlords know that janelle had talked to edgar and that this was is what was said that we have a small accessory use. subsequently the agent actually said, you know, we want that contact info and we don't you to have problems with planning. so if you look at exhibit 2-a that's the agent asking me for that information and that statement there. and they wanted that before we could sign a lease. so we provided that and they spoke to edgar at planning. 12 days later on september 12th, i signed the lease so that is your exhibit 3. and you will see on the first page that was september 12th and the second page was sale of

cooking ingredients and a small office use there. on the 29th we received some designs to share the space. so because we had limitations on how much space that i could use, we had to have some designs drawn to make sure that i was underneath that space. and i have some of those designs, they're actually at the back of the packet under "designs" and you can see if you look at them that the retail was like 90% of the space and i had two small desks in this space. and in october we went to the merchant and if you look at exhibit 4 you will see the noe valley board -- >> thank you, member. >> if you can take two more minutes. >> okay, i'm halfway there. so you will see some of the commentary of the pages 1, the next page and the next page in there that showed the comments that we said that, hey, we went to planning and here's what the percentage is and here's what we're doing and they did a whole

story on it. so that's the noe valley invoice. we went to the merchants and they unanimously liked the idea, in fact, they said can you be the president and that's where it all got exciting. so, anyways, we started building and doing what we were doing. and on november 9th i got an email from all of the partners that said i'm really sorry we have underestimated the costs and we can't move in and we are sorry that we have put you in a really bad position. but that's what it is. so if you look at exhibit number five, it's the email that i received from them two months after we signed the lease. at that point in time i called the guy who designed the space for us and i said oh, my god, what am i going to do? and he said, you know what, i have always wanted to do a store, why don't i open up a housing store with you and i said, great and if you see that noe valley invoice again you can see they did a store track report on his store. we opened up a soft opening in

december of that year at a wine walk and then we opened in january the following year. anyways, fast forward a couple months and somebody from planning came in and said, hey, you know, what's happening, you've got a couple debts in here, something to report. and the gentleman had all of his products that he sold in there and artwork that he sold in there and they felt that he should have more things that he sold and they didn't like that he had artwork. they said that he should be a gallery. there was a lot of confusion and he was upset. and a couple months later he didn't want to deal with it and he left. and here we are today where i'm kind of left holding the bag. so our company attempted to do some sort of outerwear, you know, things to sell, you know, the retail market has now shifted. but if you take a look at the last exhibit that i have for you, the gentleman who actually rented us the space who had talked to the city, i actually

heard from him this morning and he said i have heard what's happening and, you know, as far as i recollect we talked to planning and you were fine as long as you were an accessory use. so that's what happened. >> thank you miss swan. thank you for your time and we may have questions along too but first let's take public comment on this item and, again -- >> thank you. >> we'll limit it to one minute because we have heard this before. any speakers on this? if there are and there seems to be, line up on the screen side of the room and come in the order. i have one speaker card, mr. carnalois, go ahead. >> hi, commissioners. henry carnolouis. it's quite a place and there's shops and restaurants and so on, but today we have a lot of online sales and that's impacting the city, not just noe valley but everywhere. and so how do these small businesses survive?

they survive by having traffic coming in. and how do you get the traffic? in noe valley merchants do things like the hay rides and the wine walks and the easter egg hunt, and the small business week, and noe valley garden fair and the summerfest and spook spooktacular and noe valley town square. and what else here, the 24 holidays and the 24th street. who is running that? rachel swan. she is running it. she's making businesses in noe valley survive and grow. i urge you to grant this. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is edward lee, a san francisco resident. i'm here speaking in support of rachel swan and the agency. you have already heard a bit of comment there before.

i was here during that november 29th hearing and there were a lot of people who were kind of speaking to her character and trying to circumvent the law which i am like, are you out of your mind? because she's extremely smart and she understands the retail world and understands real estate like none other and she was not trying to do anything that was against the law. i think that she was working within the parameters of what she was given. now with regards to what the gentleman had spoken, yes, she is a huge community backer. she supports so many of those businesses in the noe valley region and has tons of people who come in from all over the city in order to support those merchants in that area. lastly, i will just close in that speaking with people who are looking at retail spaces, right now there are 15 retail storefronts in the noe valley area. so having another empty space is not good. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please.

>> hello and thank you for having me today. my name is lisa bose. i was here with great honor at the last meeting on behalf of the agency and rachel swan. i know that i have limited time here so i'll wrap this up. once again it is a true honor to be here to support the agency beyond the scope of real estate. the agency has been an integral part of supporting local artists and small businesses over the past three years by sponsoring free community art events. and alongside and in conjunction with the san francisco police department and the station and the san francisco department of public works and the bart station plazas. this would not have been possible without the support of the agency and their staff. on behalf of 2,500 local artists and dozens of family-owned small businesses we support the agency. they make all of the difference in the community, bringing the community together.

assistant chiefs of the fire department, was supposed to be here to speak today on behalf of the agency to present a petition. >> your time is up. >> with 300 plus signatures. thank you very much. >> next speaker, please. >> hi, good afternoon, i'm michelle long. i am here in support of the agency and i want to make the following points. i'm a third generation san francisco native and i'm raising my children in noe valley where my father and grandfather grew up in noe valley. i have deep roots in the community and care about the vibrancy of the 24th street corridor and noe valley. it's one of the longest shopping corridors in san francisco and for this reason with the changes in online purchasing and the length of our shopping area, the only way for it to survive and thrive is to have a healthy mix of retail and restaurant and business use. the corridor conditional use should be shortened to the main two core blocks and then the

outer blocks, since it's such a long corridor, should be relegated to retail, restaurant and business use. i was one of the first people hired by the agency in august of 2017, and i know the history. and i would have never joined the company that was trying to circumvent the law. >> thank you, ma'am, your time is up. >> thank you miss long. >> good afternoon, my name is kristin janaris, owner of noia restaurant. and i'm here in support of the agency. richel swan is the agency and her office is a hub for all of development that happens in noe valley. it's not just a real estate office. as a merchants association president, rachel is responsible for spearheading events like the summerfest, spooktacular and the wine walks and my business

personally sees at least 25% increase in sales on these event days. association meetings are held there, the cub scouts use her office as their monthly meeting hub and i.c.a. girls do their work study program there. and losing the agency on 24th street would 100% have a negative impact on my business and i also believe on many of the other businesses along the corridor. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. chris fouse, noe valley resident. last night around 11:00, i was walking in the neighborhood when i ran across sage who was finally headed home after locking up her business. two neighbors standing on the corner and discussing how to keep the street safe and inviting and interesting so that this schoon could be repeated in years to come. noe valley is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in san francisco but we could lose that distinction. what is unique and interesting could give way to what is mundane or worse, crass

commercialism. already 24th street is littered with a dozen or more real estate offices and no one can argue that the public is served by adding more or even retaining them all. and in the last 10 years what used to be an interesting intersection with three retail corners has degraded to three real estate offices. i'm here because i care deeply about my neighborhood. and the changes that we are seeing make our streets less inviting and less stores to browse mean lesses interaction with merchants and less interactions with neighbors. real estate agents -- >> thank you, sir. >> sorry, just a reminder that you will hear a beep that telling you have 30 seconds left. it goes quick because we only have a minute this time. welcome. >> okay, i will also try to condense into 60 seconds here. the two points that i would like to make is that i think that there's a lot of solutions that could happen here for the agency without granting a c.u. they could move into a properly

zoned space such as the one at 1500 castra and consolidate into their giant office that they're building in the castra district. i think that rewarding someone -- i know that she says that she tried really hard and i'm sure that is true, i don't know rachel swan personally but i don't believe that over three years not going for the conditional use permit when you could have gone for it is stating that someone follows the rules. i think that is a dangerous precedent to set. and i was in the last meeting concerned about -- you can see the map that i put out. i made a map about the mix because someone expressed concern about the business mix and so i couldn't find the map. >> thank you, ma'am, your time is up. >> i wanted to make my map point if you don't mind. the professional services of the district is 17% and of that 49% is real estate.

>> okay, you can submit that to us also. thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, i'm daniel handel. and i heard your discussion online and i was not able to attend the last meeting. one point is that denying the c.u. will not affect the merchant community. it's one of the lowest vacancy rates in the city and it's a thriving area. i think that the case in point is that you denied a c.u. to a pet food chain and very quickly subsequently after that the space was relented to a yoga fitness studio, it's the first of its kind in the neighborhood. and the second is that denying a c.u. will not put the agency out of business. it was reported that they have signed 8,700 square feet in castro and it is hard to imagine they would not move all of their 11 employees, agents, in noe valley over to that location.

so i want to end in saying that it's really unfair competition. they knew when they moved in that it was zoned for retail and other businesses were denied that opportunity while they were there. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i have lived and operated my business in noe valley for 20 years. and i am a former merchant board member and a executive committee member. and i gave freely of my time to further noe valley and san francisco overall without expecting any special consideration or privileges. the permitting process is a vital part of the neighborhoods to participate in its shaping. if you grant forgiveness to one person, others will follow suit and expect the same treatment, possibly creating a flood of non-qualifying and former retail businesses that are open without proper permitting. this is a desirable corner retail location with prominent retail store frontage. and other businesses passed because they were respectful of the rules and decided to find a

more appropriate location for their business. there are not 15 vacancies within 24th street corridor and many are being under credit and reviewed and renovated. of such there's only four available units. this will not adversely impact noe valley and i encourage you to please deny this c.u. application. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> and what i was going to say was already addressed. i have two children who don't like to come down to noe valley anymore because it's not the same neighborhood as it was. i have lived here for 45 years. there are actually at least 14 real estate -- how many more do we need? with the space at miss swan occupies was a stained glass business and they were priced out. it is -- it is for retail business and not professional use. what we ask you is to uphold the c.u. process and to make your

decision on the merits of the case. permitting processes is a vital part of the community that safeguards small and independent business. that includes the marketplace and economy. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i think that the point that we seem to be missing is that this is the third real estate agent on this block, every corner has a real estate agent. it's the 14th agency in noe valley itself. and even if she didn't know at the beginning, which i don't believe is true, she was contacted by the planning department two years ago and asked to comply with the c.u. and for two years she did not do so. the point is that there never would have been a c.u. granted at the beginning because no one wants a real estate agent on this block. but we won't know because she never applied for it in the beginning or two years ago when this first became noncompliant and she was informed of that. i have an email here from deb

newman to janelle and rachel at the time when they were talking about this partnership. where it says that solely as a real estate office it would be received with much pushback from the community and probably would not be approved. but we don't know that now. it's after the fact. and now you're taking good works and deeds into consideration which is not the fact. the fact is that nobody wants a real estate agent on this corner. it should be available for retail. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i just want to point out once again that this is not a matter of if you build it, they'll come. if we were looking at two different business models here, one was a real estate agency and another one would have been a restaurant, i would understand, you know, obviously, we would want to have a restaurant instead. but this is not the case.

you know, if we actually if we don't approve this, this is going to be another empty storefront and that's what i have an issue with. the more empty storefronts on 24th street it will expedite the other stores closing, because we need the vibrancy. there's a certain vibrancy that is missing from 24th street. and the closure of this place and having dark space, dark storefront, is going to crush us to death. so that's my issue. so if people have other ways to bring businesses to noe valley, please do come forward, but i have run out of solutions. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. thank you for hearing us today. i am a resident of noe valley and i actually recently moved there. and one of the reasons that i moved to noe was because of the vibrant corridor on 24thth

street. i had been a resident of inner ricrichmon and i came from clemt street, which was great, but i love the 24th street corridor. it has a perfect mix of things right now, i can go out to eat and shop and get most of my local needs done. should i need a real estate agent some time moving forward, i have plenty of options to choose from. and i think rachel swan and the agency should be allowed to stay. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> so once again i'm here to support rachel swan and the agency. i own small fries and i'm a legacy business and i have been there for over 34, 35 years. i have lived in the neighborhood 45 years. and the ideal world i would love to have another small business in the neighborhood but when the stained glass store went out, which was not a retail business inasmuch as a service business

because they had classes there primarily, that space stayed empty for a long time. a very long time. and so when rachel went in there were retail spaces on all of the corners and now there are realtors. but in her contribution to the neighborhood i do think that needs to be taken into consideration in this specific case. so i support the c.u. for rachel. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. can. >> hi, deborah nieman and i run the business district for noe valley. i'm here in support of rachel swan and the agency. i would say that she's an exemplary leader in the neighborhood. and henry cited all of those activities that she started and i want to say, henry, we did it in partnership, which is even better. because rachel has been a very strong leader with the merchants' association and strong with i.c.a. and bringing young girls to work in her offense anoffice and to be parte

neighborhood and the community. if you deny the c.u. you hurt not only rachel and the agency but us as a community. because we work very well together and the merchants and the noe valley town square and it would be a shame to have her leave the neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is rick french, along with my wife i own a legacy business that has been in noe valley for 43 years. and i come here again today to request that you deny this c.u. before you. you have heard the arguments on both sides and i'll try to not be redundant. friends, co-workers and some of the activists that have praised the good work that rachel swan has done for the neighborhood and i'm sure that some of these things are true. but there's always two sides to a story. and perhaps both sides have a little gray area. now this is where i won't be

redundant. the issue at hand is what is fair for everyone. to give a pass to an individual because of the good work being done and do you deny a c.u. because of a flagrant violation, zoning violations? or take into consideration the basic rules set up by it department. we know what the rules are and they're for all of us to follow and we all learn at a very young age that you follow the rules. those people who think they can get around those rules... >> thank you, sir. >> that's really short. >> rachel swan is my neighbor and an upstanding and caring and valuable member ever the noe valley community. in 2016 she struck a deal to rent the space on 24th street that included making her own tenant improvements. her original tenant opted out of the arrangement and they came in the space to sell custom furniture and art pieces. when he left by the end of 2017,

the agency stayed and hired students from the local parochial school part-time in addition to the real estate agents. rachel became an integral part of the community from the offset as the president of noe merchants and sponsored countless events at noe town square. she's concerned about promoting a thriving commercial corridor and i feel so sad and i would miss rachel and the agency for the c.u. is denied and the space goes dark again. >> thank you. any additional public comment on this item? >> hello, my name is gina blankart, with the agency in san francisco. and i last year moved my family from los angeles to the bay area and i'm a proud third generation san franciscoian. and i'm proud to be part of the agency, one of the only female-owned agencies in 25 locations and i frequent at least six merchants per day that i'm there working and i moved to san francisco because of its

being so progressive. and so that being said, we are progressive and let's find a solution that we want to stay and to be part of the community and we know that can help us to do that. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> and i wasn't planning on speaking today but rachel swan is my wife and i'm a lawyer and i -- people who are around me know that rachel doesn't get away with much around me. and i'm all about rules and regulations. i find it just awful that someone would accuse her of that, of flagrantly violating the rules. so obviously i'm bias but i would suggest that you take what she's says at face-value. thank you very much. >> any other additional public comments? >> hello, i am renee dikes and i'm also part of the agency. and i wanted to piggyback on what liz said, with rachel swan

being the one to really let me into the business and really take in a youngster as you'd say in the industry and to just open up her office up with open arms. one thing they could say is that if you guys do take us into consideration and just take in all of the exhibits, i think that one through five that she provided all of us, that we're not doing all of these community things to get a pat on the back. we do it because we genuinely care. we are here to enliven the neighborhood and to reach out to anyone in the community that needs it. so if you could take us into consideration we'll carry that on. thank you. >> any additional public comment? thank you all. seeing none we'll close public comment. and open it up to commissioners. commissioner koppel. >> commissioner koppel: sticking with my vote similar to last time that we rarely see both anastasia and asie in support of projects like these. and they're very vocal at these