so i can talk more about that later. and then the last thing is really to clarify what is the public benefit of retaining a portion of an existing building into a larger development. and to do that we've developed a set of -- not necessarily criteria but questions that a developer may articulate or a project sponsor may articulate to all of us, including the public, about why they're approaching a project a certain way. and so that at least allows us to have a discussion about really on balance is this the right approach. and that includes, you know, is the replacement building actually a better building and we should be projecting this notion of retaining elements. and there has also been discussion, if they don't apply to historic resources and these are only to be applied to where the u.d.g.s are relevant, what type of buildings will be affected. here's an example of some buildings within central soma.

these properties were not found to be historic resources, but naturally they retain, you know, some architectural detail, they certainly reflect the sort of low-scale light industrial character of central soma. and there are some, you know, i think that some would argue that there is some value in these buildings. maybe just in terms of fine grain scale and the neighborhood context. and so these are the properties that we would expect to apply these retained element guidelines on. and then again those questions. this is two slide combination. so one is to have an articulation what is the visual contribution of the building to be partially retained and what elements to be retained. so we talk about the existing uses of the building and do they help to establish a pattern within the environment. and then also talk about technical feasibility. as we know that we have seen a lot of projects attempt to do this and the end result is a bit of a letdown for all of us.

there are some successful projects but we hear more offer than not, did we actually approve that vent in that location? or aren't there supposed to be more windows retained. this will allow a project sponsor to be forefront about whether or not it's technically feasible to integrate a smaller building into a larger development. and then finally the two remaining questions are, really determining what are the fundamental relationships. we are talking about, one, what is the benefit, and, two, what is really special that we need to keep. so we can artic iewlt arulate ae are and how it works into the fabric of the neighborhood. and finally so we have a way to discuss this in a meaningful way is to evaluate the replacement building. perhaps there is another design that would be more valuable to san francisco's built environment. and then the decisionmakers and the public can have a discourse

about this. so with that i'm going to hand it over to mya and she'll talk a little bit more about how the document is structured. to some of you it will look very familiar to the u.d.g.s and the special area design guidelines drafted by the design team. and i'm happy again to answer questions at the end about how we will approach this topic in the historic design guidelines in the upcoming year. and zahn zimmer who is managing the design outreach document can also provide some information if you so desire. thanks. >> hello, everyone, mya small, planning department staff. as tim has suggested that, you know, this has been a really interesting process for us as well as staff, and it's interesting to see all of you here today evaluating design review and preservation in combination. and interimly we are collaborating on this project and it's been a rich and valuable process. these are really challenging

issues at play and looking at a site and something that you're weighing all the time in terms what the benefits are of a particular project and how it comes forth. and as many of you know that we have been working on establishing base guideline documents. and the residential design guidelines in our district are with the fundamental guideline document there. and we have the newly adopted urban design guidelines for our mixed use and our neighborhood commercial and our commercial districts. and then the forthcoming historic design guidelines. so those base guidelines establish the larger framework of design guidance for these issues. the special topic design guidelines and special area design guidelines are the layer above that that helps us to get into a finer amount of detail, a richer discourse around the specificity of what could happen in a particular neighborhood or around a particular topic. and so we have ground floor residential design guidelines, for example, and the one that has come most recently is the

pulp and pacific, the special area design guidelines that are coming up for adoption. i think that is a good example of how we're doing it in a particular location. so this would be the first one around a particular topic. so these guidelines basically would be formed as a layer above whatever the base document is that applies. we have mostly been talking about in areas where the urban design guidelines apply, but i think this is up for conversation about how it might apply, say, in our districts or in historic districts. there are sites that are not contributors and it might be a typical site within that direct. and -- district. and it might be something to layer over the historic design guidelines. so when we began looking at these as design guidelines there's obviously a lot of specific information coming from an architectural and a preservation expertise. so we have sort of dove in and began looking at specific ways that projects could address this

as a topic. and so we're going to go through them very briefly. there's a lot of detail in there and, you know, you should have copies that were forwarded to you. i have physical copies here as well. and so i'm going to talk a little bit about how these work together as two sets of guidelines, but also some of the specificity of how we're thinking about how you can retain parts of buildings and parts of things on the site. i just want to show how these things fold together. so the special topic -- the special topic design guidelines work with the base document. in this case on the right, these are the urban design guidelines that would apply that are relevant. so you can see that we might have s1, so we both have the same topic and the site design and architecture, and we're not including any around public realm which is the third portion in the urban design guideline. so they are related and so you have s1 about urban patterns and an s1.1 that is more spe specify

about what is important in that topic. so we have two in the site design topic and five in the architecture. and you know that a2 has both a2.1 and a2.2, and so there's different aspects on that one that we wanted to unpack a little bit more thoroughly. so i'll go through these very briefly and while these look very sort of formal and they're graphic and there's a lot of articulated language here, know that this is very much a draft. this is a complicated set of topics. there's a lot of technical, i think, knowledge around arveg architecture in here and it's a beginning process to talk to you about. it we have talked around each site is specific and there are unique conditions on each site. and things that are special about each site. but there are some rules of thumb that we're developing as we go through this. this is not a commonly found design guideline in different cities, right? so we don't have a lot of other models to look at.

but it's really trying to kind of find the best understandings of preservation but to do it in a non-preservation way and decide the best outcome and kind of balance. so 1.1, to sustain the features that define a neighborhood. i like to think of this as looking for the landmarks with a small "l." so thinking of things in the neighborhood and how does a particular building that is not a resource may contribute to a neighborhood either as a location that's important, the physical fabric that is important within the facade. there might be a spire or some other kind of articulated element that is really critical. and it might be a mural, for example. and how do we think about parts of more buildings that have meaning to people but do not qualify as preservation? and s2.1, establish new massing to be compatible with the context. i think this one is very similar to s2 in the s are sens s is hos

within the block or the particular areas of blocks. if you have something on the corner how does it address the massing that holds the corner and with mid-block common space. these are within the urban design guidelines and the residential design guideline and we think that there's a particular way in which you're keeping something on the site and how new massing can then accent that and contribute to that, that fits within the overall pattern. a2.1, now we're on the architecture section. and supporting retained massing and facade edges. i think that is one that is often done very, very poorly and we start to call things facadism. when you keep the face of a building and the outer edge of a building, if you approach that building from a sort of elevation, from the front, and you start to look at how massing is added around it, there are rules of thumb if you have everything present at the same

facade that existing facade looks really superficial and it looks like a postage stamp that is left. so thinking about how things can be brought forward but other things should be kept back. and how you should not do that on more than one edge, for example. this really looks at how the relationship of the edges and how the framing works within the whole concept of the block. so new development can be added but if it's not done with respect to how it's defined around the edges it starts to look kind of tacked on and superficial. so those things are very important. and a2.2, articulate a clear relationship between the new development and retained elements. so once you define what is important to remain and it's about defining the relationship of the new thing to the old thing. this is often done with what we call an architectural hypen, a vertical hyphen or a horizontal hyphen, which is really a way of demonstrating a volume metric

change between what is added and what is staying there. so defining things as volumes and not surfaces really matters. and the other thing to avoid is to have a sense that the volume is helping to continue through and in between the two of them and that also can make it look quite superficial. so articulating hyphens and that's an architectural thing and how it's detailed and how the materials are handled all really matters. so we're trying to get into specificity around these things. again, these are guidelines so it gives approaches and demonstrations and there's no specific means that is required. and the next one is a3.1, harmonize materials and new development with retained elements. so this is also i think goes hand-in-hand with a2.2, which is to articulate not only volume but material. and material often expresses and helps to express volume. and so in this case, i mean, there's rules of thumb around -- sometimes -- you don't want

something to look too much the same and the contrast actually helps in many instances but you will notice if you change the form or the overall sensibility of it and you change the material that it's too much. and if you're able to keep some residences with the material you can probably change the form and vice versa. so finding that kind of harmonious balance where you feel that there's a cadence between what is there and what is being added without necessarily feeling like they're merging or getting too close to each other. those are a lot of subtle differences and those are the sort of design dialogues that we have internally quite a bit. so it's trying to articulate that through example. and a6.1, i like to think of honoring the thing that is remaining. so restoring the existing features. if you are keeping something -- and sometimes it's also keeping part of a wall. there may be instances that we can't retain a facade or a whole volume metric expression and it may be portions of things that

are reincorporated. that you have to honor the thing which is being retained. meaning to give it dignity in what it had originally been intended. this is the most preservation-like aspect within these guidelines that says if there's possibilities of restoring things, if there are ways of cleaning up and rearticulating things that were there that may have been filled in over time that it's appropriate to bring them back to the state of their sort of highest and best quality. i think that we all know that there are fabric buildings that may not end up being a resources, but they still have prism glass or they still have industrial sash glass or used masonry material or built in such a way that we don't simply build anymore. and there's meaning and importance in retaining that and qualities of retaining that. so this is an option to sort of highlight that and to make sure that that is part of the final project. and then, lastly, 8.1, and

reviving ground floor elements. everything, of course -- often these projects are the ground floor. in many cases it's the bottom few floors that are remaining for these kind of projects. again, restoring and reanimating and reviving those and making sure that whatever original openings were there are maintained and bringing them back to life. and making sure that the volume behind this facade is integrated as a piece of architecture. that the floors are aligning and that fits in with earlier guidelines and making sure that the ground floor feels honest and authentic in the way that it's sitting within the neighborhood and then embracing what is above it. so those are the guidelines as they stand right now. we look for your guidance in terms of some response and in terms of how to proceed. we definitely would like to begin some community outreach if this approach seems like a viable ongz. and we have -- option. we have a first meeting that is scheduled -- this is our first announcing of this, on

february 26th in the evening at the planning department. so we can have the public come in and start having conversations around this beyond what's been happening here within the commissions. and then we are looking very much for good examples and we feel that this is part of the dialogue of this process to -- there are non-san francisco examples in this guideline. it's first time that we have done that in any of our recent dpiedlines. we want a sense of what is the appropriate ways that things have come out and some under construction right now may be good examples so we'll be looking and unearthing these and we look forward to the members of the public and as well the staff and you all to help us to find some really good examples to populate this thing as best we can. so i'm, of course, we're here to answer any questions. >> thank you very much. we will take public comment if that's okay on the guidelines and then commissioner comments. >> your turn, georgia.

>> may i have the overhead please, sfgov. to reiterate what i said before, this one has all of those nice elements, you know, pre-1920, probably even earlier than that. and that's gone now. it's an alteration but it's gone. and this one is maintaining them. and i don't know if that comports with what miss small was talking about, whether it would fit in that, but it's maintaining them. and to me as a novice or as an amateur, it's hard for me to distinguish between these two. i think they both have -- and i do see a lot in the valley where they're keeping anything pre-1920 but after that they're not keeping them. and i think that this one is very important because it's a 1927, it's a mediterranean barrel front and it has all of the details. these are the things that you're just talking about in your report that i hope that can be

considered for maintaining. thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm courtney dam kroger and i'm the board chair at san francisco heritage. i don't have any specific comments at this point because heritage, our projects and policy committee, has been working with tim and the department. and we're grateful for that. so we're, you know, we thank you to the planning department. we haven't seen this current iteration. so we'll be back with, you know, with our comments. so sorry to not say more but i wanted to know that heritage is here and interested in the conversation. thank you. >> thank you very much. any other public comment on this item? okay. with that commissioner black. >> yes. this topic is so tricky from a design standpoint. we've all seen really good examples and really bad

examples. and i don't know that those examples -- those examples have to do with the resource, the setting and the new architecture, primarily the new architecture and how they fit together. and some of the really good projects, even some in this brochure, i don't know that they'd meet the city's guidelines, but having said that we do have to have guidelines because the guidelines need to be developed to guide the lowest common denominator. for example, a project that has a really limited site or a difficult resource. or objectives like really getting a lot of square footage in a location where it's appropriate for a lot of square footage. and how to balance those competing objectives is really difficult. and it makes the development of the design guidelines really difficult.

so this is a really complicated task that you have taken on and i think that overall it's pretty good. and what i like most about it is that the dpiedline guidelines a. and you're allowing for good design to happen. you're not being so specific where you say that you must have x number of feet of setback or x amount of hyphenation. but it throws the process of getting good design on staff -- broad guidelines allow good design, but getting there puts a lot of pressure on staff. so i recognize that and it puts pressure on our commissions. so i think that this is pretty impressive. i can tell that it's been a long discussion and struggle.

these are hard to do, really hard to do. >> thank you. commissioner perlman. >> thank you, i want to compliment justin greving and mya small and staff, because i do think that this has come quite a long way. i have been working as an architect in san francisco for almost 30 years now. there was a time in the 1990s when there were -- they were called guidelines but they were actually laws. like, you have to set back 15 feet. it doesn't matter what the building is, it doesn't matter that the structure line is at 14 feet, it didn't matter. so this has come a really long way into the sensitivity that, you know, every building is unique and every time, you know, a client comes to me with their latest acquisition, it's like, oh, crap what we'll do now because this is so different from the last one that we did. so i really appreciate that, you know, the direction that this has taken and like commissioner

black mentioned that it's broad enough that it gives us a lot of opportunity as architects to work with our clients and to make good buildings which is often lost in the watered down version after it's been hammered by the staff and it gets to commission and it gets hammered more. so i appreciate that. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner hyland. >> yes, i want to just thank staff. this is fantastic. i know that in my 25 plus year career this has been top of my mind. and at one point i had a student intern, a ph.d student who did her dissertation on facadism. and this is yet another first at the city of san francisco is tackling, along with the cultural resource -- or the cultural, business legacy and all of the cultural districts and the lgbt issues and now tackling the retained element as

we'll call it going forward. i think that is an appropriate label. it's just really exciting that we can show leadership to the rest of the country. and it has begged the question around standard nine and the appropriateness of additions in relation to massing and scale and appropriateness to the resource and specifically what we're dealing with now in this city is vertical additions which have been pretty much not accepted, you know, as a general practice. i just wanted to point out that i liked the way that you described, mya, with identifying and articulating the volume and not the surface. i think that will help us in those projects where we're retaining elements and we want to avoid it just being a postage stamp on the building. so great work. and as well as the site work. i think that, you know, that is

some of the recent projects we have learned that the significant cultural site, landscapes, are important as well. and looking at the project in that eye is helpful. >> thank you, commissioner hillis. >> so thank you, i agree with most of the comments that have been made already. and i think that this document is more than a good start. i just like where it's heading. but my question is, what buildings does it apply to, right? so it doesn't apply to historic resources, right? because we're not saying they're all demos. you showed some examples where it could apply, but are we saying that it would apply everywhere? i mean the low-slung industrial building is interesting but there's a lot of them and there are times that probably they should come down because you get more building and more housing out of demoing it. so that's my only question is kind of where do we apply this? i wouldn't want the arkansas ticketture -- architecture of

the city to be facadism, whatever we do going forward is kind of keeping the elements. >> i think that is a really interesting question. and because it's a topic, right, as soon as you retain an element i think that it becomes applicable. and the question is how -- how does this decision get made that you're retaining an element, right? so i think that first of all it sets the bar that says if you're coming in and you have -- you are going to demolish everything and this doesn't apply, right? you come in and you feel that the community is really asking you to retain something and maybe there's some discussion with staff or there's sort of an internal set of pressures that encourage that or maybe -- i mean, developers do come in and say they want to keep things. and then this applies. now there's no -- you know, it's design guidelines, right? so it's more subjective and it's not like i'm doing group housing and, therefore this applies and it's not a specific designation. that's one of the questions that i have in this process. but i think that if you are

retaining an element you are then held to this particular bar, this particular standard. i think that one of the things that we're also trying to set in the design guidelines with the use of the examples is that we expect you to do this with a very, you know, well accomplished professional. you need to have -- you need to know what you're doing when you are doing this if you're going to be doing it. and i think that the question is how -- how it gets triggered in that sense. >> okay. commissioners, if i could just follow-up on that because related to historic preservation specifically, i think that there's a challenge not only at the h.p.c. but within the department, of sort of this notion from the general public that facade retention is a preservation project. and so this design guideline document is also a way to provide some separation between that, to demonstrate that we're not talking about historic preservation here, but as mya said, because often a developer of a project or sponsor coming to us and saying look at the good work that we're going to do. we're going to save this and preserving it. and we are saying that the bar

will be a little bit higher in that case. but most of my experience is that this has been voluntary. through the e.i.r. process, as you know, we will give options for partial preservation but those are generally for historic resources. in this case the developer can come and say, hey, i'd like to keep this and we're like this is how you can do that. >> so the example at pine and franklin, you know, the small buildings, that i actually think when we first approved that, i didn't like that design and i think that one was tacked on and we kind of ended up removing that one that was tacked on. i think that it actually work list, the ultimate project that is there. but that was a resource, right? >> correct. >> so, i mean, these would apply i guess if the decisionmakers said that there's overriding consideration to remove a resource, these could also kick in, and they would kick in -- >> yeah, potentially, but i

think that the bigger question that president hyland mentioned is that this is what we have to match head-on in the design guideline document about standard nine and what is an appropriate addition to an historic resource. >> but, again, looking at a resource. >> exactly. >> you're gearing these to non-resources which i think is tricky -- so that could be flushed out a little more, when it would apply, i think that would be helpful. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks. so thank you so much, staff, for this. it's been really been exciting to read and to understand more and to see us taking leadership on this. i think that in particular i just really love the weighing of the options slides. i think that it's not only beneficial to us and to staff but i think that it will be beneficial to all of the stakeholders, including the public in thinking about when a development comes before them and thinking about how to interact with that development. and i think that this is really

great and that it does allow flexibility and for the opportunity to assess things on a case-by-case basis but it provides really good guidelines. i think that it would be great if we could -- to commissioner hillis' comments, to get more specific about where we're applying them and making sure that, again, that figuring out what we are trying to encourage being preserved isn't kind of left up to whim. and i think that specifically looking at our neighborhood specific special area design guidelines like polk and pacific and being proactive about identifying if there are buildings or resources that are not historic but that the community itself has said that they feel they want to continue to support. i'm just wondering how these two pieces of work fit together. and then the last piece that i'll say is that -- i'm so glad

as s2.1 is here, for new massing to be compatible with the context. which always feels like a crunchy -- or -- well, there's tension there. i think that, again, thinking about what we preserve versus maybe the context of a neighborhood is one thing now but in 10 years from now the context of the neighborhood needs to be and will be different. and just weighing that balance between what is physically there and recognizing that, you know, what is specifically there is there because of a myriad of reasons. some things that we want to perpetuate and others that we don't want to perpetuate and looking at equity and other things. so just any more guidance that could be given around how to weigh that balance out, the existing context with the city that we're trying to build, i think that it would be helpful

to everyone involved. >> thank you. commissioner richards. >> i think that it's a great document. i thank you very much for all of the hard work that you put into it. one of the interesting things that might be an intangible, i think to commissioner johnson's point and others, you walk down a certain street and you have a feeling, the southside of market street between noe and sanchez has its own feeling. i don't know if it's historic or not. but if we were to dense few that, i would -- densdensify th, and i'm not sure that every street has a feeling that we need to preserve. but it's a sense of place that i think that makes the city special. i don't want to use other cities as punching bags but i have been to other cities and the sense of place has been completely obliberated and it's bland. i mean i know that there's a lot of pressures and that but there's no sense of place there anymore. everything is gone.

and i think that the other thing is that since this is not -- these aren't historic buildings, during the p.p.a. period i think that strongly suggesting to the developer that there be a benefit to keeping a portion of the building should be a check box. we discussed it, what did they say. and then i think that if we really want to take this further on, you know, and, again, not to do the entire city but some examples are pretty amazing -- and maybe we -- we offer a concession incentive or waiver somehow, like in the home s.f. process. in order to get them to save something that they don't want to. so we kind of have a net balance of you're not going to lose a ton of money because we all know that it's easier to construct on a green field than it is on around a building. it's complicated and more expensive and the shoring and whatever. and then the last thing is, --

so that might be some legislation that, you know, is after we see whether this is being taken up or not by a project sponsor and it's something that we would consider if they keep saying that it's too costly. and the other one is that we saw miss schoutis group c, and it keeps san francisco, a sense of neighborhood that it has, and because we're a city of neighborhoods i would hope when we do the revised r.d.g.s we can have a residential version too. they seem compatible and the u.d.g. land, but i think that more sensitive residential ones as well would be a good one. >> thank you, commissioner wolfram. >> thank you. i think this is a great document but i do want to sort of second commissioner hillis' concernor question about the potential projects that there was a historic resource and because of overriding consideration that

it's being demolished but potentially retained. there seems to be a gap there. for example, the 450 o'farrell project had been approved as originally designed it would have had retained elements. but if we say that it doesn't apply -- the historic design guidelines wouldn't be appropriate for that either. so i'm just wondering how we address that. because it seems that we don't want to then have projects that were historic and they retained elements but we're not using this document for. >> right. it's a great point and i think that is something that we need to certainly clarify. you could make the argument, although it sounds very bureaucratic, because we're demolishing the resource it's no longer historic and, therefore, the guidelines don't apply. >> that's a technical one and hard to explain to the designer or the developer. >> okay. go ahead, allison. >> i wanted to add that often when we have demolition of historic resources we have

mittgation measures to reduce the impacts on the resources. so one of the things that we'll explore is using mitigation measures to talk about, you know, using these design guidelines as well. so we'll look into that and clarify that. >> that could be a great -- >> thank you. commissioner hyland. >> thank you. i just want to say commissioner hillis that i think that you and i are really aligned in the idea around facadism and i have been very vocal if we're keeping the facades that we do it in a meaningful way. and understanding the volume behind it helps to do that. and to your point commissioner wolfram, of the resource that is being demolished -- so the pine street row, there were two projects, one on the west side closer to franklin where we retained leapts and then on the other side of -- the east side where we did not but we asked -- our joint commissions asked them to maintain the urban massing along that road, but -- those

are the project -- so the point is that if the project is a demolition which is what many of the draft e.i.r.s are saying that we have struggles with, then this could be applied through the mitigation measures and that would be very helpful. but the notion is that if we're keeping something let's do it in a meaningful way. and could tha understand that ia preservation, it's an urban design effort. >> commissioner perlman. >> thank you. i did want to comment related to what commissioner hillis said and commissioner johnson about we're doing a project on mission street where the prevailing facades are two and three stories. the zoning is the future state which allows us to go up to 65 feet on that particular -- on that block. so what we're doing is that the facade of this building is a c,

and it's not historic but it looks very historic. it's a victorian period. it's not in great shape but it has all of the character defining features of what was built at the time. so we're choosing to retain that facade and we are setting back above the building and then going up to the 65 feet. so -- and what is odd, what will be odd until more is built out is that the massing will be much bigger than the street. because we're going to have a six-story building rather than the three-story buildings that are around it. but you do have to then, you know, we're going to do 10, 12 units of housing. so you do then have to look at the future state and hoping that other ones will come up on that block and that will be consistent for the future. but we're doing both, saving the facade and the first portion of the building so that it still feels that it's part of the

existing context and then looking to the future with something above. but it is a different massing. and it may end up at your commission so i hope that you'll appreciate that. [laughter]. approved, approved. [laughter]. >> commissioner richards. >> just one thing. i know that this is not a preservation, you know, and this could apply to a 450 o'farrell where we -- i think that this would have been -- the one -- the preferred department version would have fit this because it would have retained more of the facade. again, it's not a mitigation measure because the building is gone but i wish that in the alternatives that we had for that project and maybe future projects that we have one that fits this retained elements policy because there are mitigation measures. and the frustrating thing on 450 o'farrell is that since the postage stamp that they were to stick on it wasn't done in the e.i.r., we couldn't request any

mitigation because they were going to get rid of it. and that was frustrating. so i really got confused, well, we're keeping part of the building so they should be able to save money and fund x, y, z. it would be better if it were outlined on the e.i.r. on historic buildings should they want to demolish them. >> commissioner hillis. >> just quickly, and on applicable, we're saying that it could be applicable on projects that are not historic and it could be applicable on projects that are historic and i go back. i think that 450 benefited from not keeping the facade. because you won't keep the context of that space. you can keep 10 feet but it's not really the space beyond that. and the facade wasn't the most compelling kind of urban facade that you would want. so, i mean, there's case where is it could work both ways on nonhistorical and historic buildings that are demoed. i think that the applicability is tricky the way that it works.

>> okay. so thank you very much, mya and allison. this is really great work and it gives us a really good set of tools. and, you know, i think that applicability to our earlier conversation about the cultural corridors, i think that it does formalize things and, you know, as a really useful set of tools for that conversation as well. so thank you so much. excellent work. so is that it? >> that's it. >> our wonderful time together. so this meeting is adjourned. >>.

sorry i'm late. good afternoon everyone. this is the meeting of the public utilities commission. it's tuesday january 22. roll call, please. >> clerk: vice president caen. >> here. >> clerk: commissioner kwon and courtney are excused and we have a quorum.

>> good. next item. >> clerk: approval of the minutes of december 11, 2018. >> i vote approval. >> second. >> any public comment? hearing none all those in favor. >> aye. >> opposed? the motion carries. item 4, general public comment. i don't have any speaker cards. is there anyone who'd like to speak to any item not on today's agenda? next item, please. >> clerk: item 5 is communications. >> commissioner: commissioners? >> nothing, thanks. >> commissioner: nothing? i think i have something. under 5h, pleased to see we're doing so well with the sewer inspection so congratulations on that. you know that's one of my -- and

also if -- you're not going comment on the water supply are you in item 5? [off mic] >> commissioner: on the chart that shows the snow pack it seems to be less than what i hear on news reports. is there a different type of snow that creates a better pack? a wet or dry snow? is there a correlation? >> steven richie the general manager for water. the snow water equivalent is what people care about, how much water is in it and it does vary where you are in the sierra. we actually have been doing fairly well and with this additional storm this last week, we are definitely well above the median now. so we're doing better. i think the reports you've been

hearing is were not based and the latest vare but the estimates of the last storm and we got the same benefits. >> commissioner: i see. and with calaveres what do we anticipate? >> the last storm we added i believe last friday we added six feet in elevation. it came up fairly quickly for a bit. i just saw the report today that we broke 30,000 acre feet for the first time in a long time so we're moving up. >> commissioner: that's great. >> just in time to dry out a little bit. >> commissioner: thank you. any public comment on item number 5? next item, please. >> clerk: before i read the next item can i please ask everybody to silence their cell phones. item 6 is other commission business. >> commissioner: commissioners?

next item. >> clerk: item 7 workforce development policy and practices administration administrationry -- stationary engineers apprenticeship. >> good afternoon, afternoon. greg norbi assistant manager at the waste water enterprise. this is in response to a prior request for informational update on the item. cath ridge -- katherine curtis will give a brief presentation and will answer questions after that. as a general comment because of the nature of the topic and pending start of labor negotiations there's probably certain elements of this we'd not want to go too far into public discussion today but we'll take that one step at a time based on the questions you may have. thank you. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. >> commissioner: hello. >> i'm katherine curtis the workforce liability manager for waste water enterprise. i'm giving you a presentation on our community benefit program. this is the background of the program. the deal was brokered as a mitigation to the bay view community as a result of expanding our plan back in the '70s after the clean water act passed. this is the criteria to enter the program. you do need to be from the bay view community as is indicated by the 94124 area code. these are the components of the internship program. it's quite a bit. most is straightforward except

for the learning assessment. i develop learning skills assessment for each station at the plant with the help of site supervisors. we addfide -- identified the knowledge, skills and abilities one would need to run the station effectively. this say copy of the assessments and we defined what look goods looks like and what meets standards and exceeds standards. this provides extreme clarities for the managers and participants of the program what they're supposed to learn. we also developed answer keys so we had consistency in the testing results and we also used diagrams and maps and pictures and s.o.p.s and many other things given to the participants on a thumb drive when they enter the program. i do a rotational schedule for

the participants in the program so they can experience maintenance, operations and lab and this is a copy of my rotational schedule. we have partnerships both internal and external. internally, i couldn't do it without the site supervisor and safety trainers and the community benefits staff help with the program as well. tracking. on the top you'll see the tracking form i use in the field testing and i track the scores and comments. on the bottom say tracking for -- is a tracking for how many people have been in the program. in my 10 years leading this program we've had 22 participants that went through and four dropped for various reasons. 16 completed and two remain.

out of the 16 completed, 14 are placed, two got job offers but didn't proceed and two are completing the program as i speak. so pretty good stats. key are the key to success. they're all important. there's screening that needs to take place prior to hire and the learning skills assessment has been a great addition. we on our operations ladder of success we have people on every stage of the ladder that came from the program. it provides us a fantastic succession plan to replenish our operations and maintenance staff. 100% placement for all graduated participants in the last 10

years and that concludes my presentation. >> commissioner: fascinating. do you have questions, commissioners? >> thank you. >> commissioner: my question would be the numbers that you have, how much room is there to scale that to include more people? >> how much room is there to scale that to what? >> >> commissioner: to include more people. >> i think there's room. it would depend how many more people. we have a lot of attrition so i believe there's room. i would have to work with my management team to decide how many more they would want to include. >> commissioner: i would say this would abe great opportunity to work with like bay works where we work with other utilities that have similar positions so we can scale up and

that's the role bay works is trying to play when they identify critical positions. some of the ones that we i guess the position we're hiring from the community is one of the critical positions. so we can scale up and i don't know -- >> we have a vast network. we have 32 utilities that are part of that group and i'm always recommending hires to those other signatory. we have capacity in that way as well. >> so the oath caveat is if this program is specifically focussed for folks who live in the bay view so however for region why we want to take advantage of folks in the community but for outside we want to maybe bring in more folks if it's going to be in east bay mud or alameda

county. that's why we want to kind of branch it out a little bit. >> >> so in it's current incarnation it's limited to people in the bay view for coming in and the size of the program is geared toward openings that we see within the waste water program is that right? >> yes. >> commissioner: so to scale it up is going wired -- wider in both directions from more parts in the city and bay area and hiring opportunity outside the p p.u.c. >> and that could be public and private. >> and a lot of those facilities don't require a lot of background and can easily be placed in those. >> thank you. >> commissioner: before we leave the podium is there any public

comments or questions from the public? thank you for your presentation. >> thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: item 8. >> the southeast facility community update. yolanda, you're up. >> i'm here to provide an update on the progress toward the community center at 1550 evans. i'd like to note shelby campbell will provide an update specific

to the construction progress so for the sake of time i'll focus on the community programming and community engagement aspects of the project. i always like to go back to the beginning and that is asking the question why are we as an agency so committed to this project. that goes back to the historic community mitigation agreement he is referenced prior by catherine curtis and when the clean water act passed in the '70s the community organized and part of our expansion in the treatment plan they demanded much of the same thing they're demanded today and that resolves around access for opportunities to education and hands-on skill building. so in furtherance of that mitigation they constructed the facility at 1800 oak dale and

created and pointed a seven-member southeast facility commission. from that history fast forward from the creation of the existing facility at 1800 oakdale to 2011 when we had a lot of requests coming from community members and tenants in the building to do an assessment of the physical state of the community center at 1800 oakdale and ways to improve the programming to deliver on the promise of the mitigation. following the assessment in 2011, it was decided we should undertake renovations to the current building on oakdale in two phases. one would be smaller to test it out and see how well we do and if it proved successful we'd move to renovating the rest of the building. in 2014 we complete the initial first phase of renovations on the south wing and assessed the

cost benefit of the renovations an determined due to critical issues in the building's mechanical system and the way it was laid out we didn't have confidence renovations would hit the mark in what we were trying to achieve. at that same time and in parallel, the agency just acquired the property at 1550 evans with the initial intention to house all the wastewater operation folks together but recognizing the unique opportunity we had, we decided to embark on a nine-month, multi-pronged stakeholder process to ask their preference to continue on oakdale or embark on building a new center at 1550 evans. the results were clear but i'd lake to take a moment to recap for you all what we did