checklist. and i also wanted to really commend the staff on the notion of standard conditions of approval. that's really worked well with the ordinance on soils and other areas, dust control, et cetera, so that those -- issues don't need mitigation measures, rather they need implementation of standards, so you can avoid having to do negative declarations or an exemption that would otherwise suffice. the one issue that i'm not terribly pleased with, and i wanted to draw to your attention is the amount of time -- if i can have the overhead, the amount of time that it can take for a project to have a stable project description to begin the deadline that the mayor's directive imposed. this is sort of a standard timeline that i've seen in a lot of the projects i'm involved in that can take up to eight months from when the ppa is filed and

the planning department determines the project description is stable enough to begin the environmental review process, so you have to add this eight months to the nine, 12, 20 months that are in the mayor's directive, and i think efforts need to be made to shorten this eight-month period, because there's so many requirements that have to be made before the project description is deemed approved, deemed stable. first, the ppa process, once you get -- once a project sponsor gets a ppa letter, they need to evaluate the responses, make modifications to the project, they also need to do a preapplication community meeting, and typically you don't do that until you get the ppa letter, so you know what you're proposing is going to work. that can take some time. then you submit an application, the department has 30 days to issue the notice of incompleteness, if there is something incomplete, it's going to take the sponsor some time to respond to that and to get a complete application together. in my experience, that can take,

you know, several weeks, as well. and then the 90-day notice of -- 90-day letter period starts and that isn't always 90 days, but can take up to three months before. and then if there even is one piece of incomplete information, which, of course, there always is, that's going to take the project sponsor some time to respond, so you could be looking at eight to nine months before that nine-month, 12-month period kicks in. so i would recommend either these, this time -- >> president melgar: thank you. thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. cory smith on behalf of the san francisco housing action coalition. all in all, obviously, pretty fantastic stuff. i know we're really excited about. funny, i was texting todd before speaking on this to a lot of the stuff mentioned, because we were hearing some of that, as well, but, you know, like any new

process, there are hiccups, and one thing we -- i wouldn't say surprised by, but thrilled with, for the most part the planning department and staff is trying to address those as quickly as possible, as well. so things are moving in the right direction. certainly don't expect everything to be perfect. one thing i'm also curious about is when the role kind of gets fully implemented, how he plugs into a lot of this stuff, because he's going to be the one looking at a lot of this and going, okay, are these things kind of hitting their milestones when we expect them to, in order to continue making sure that we are moving along the process, because as we know, with all that's happening right now, you know, namely the kind of big elephant is the rising construction costs. the long time these projects take to get approved, the less likely they are to get built because the finances don't work anymore, but all in all, i want to thank jacob and the entire department's work on this, because it has definitely been fantastic.

anything data driven is a good thing, so the projects and time frame, monitoring that stuff is so, so valuable, so kudos to everybody involved on that. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you, mr. smith. next speaker, please. >> happy valentine's day to you, commissioners. sue hester. i deal with a lot of people that are not this excited about planning projects. they have one-off, they are dealing with things right near their house, or they are community organizations that mostly deal with poor people. the whole process looks, theoretically, very good, but i can't even count the number of times that people have called me in utter frustration when i ask them to go and call documents

up. the property information map works very well for people with sophisticated computers and a sophisticated understanding of what's on there. it doesn't work well for the general public, especially people who don't have access to a color printer and a powerful computer. planning has drifted to accepting a lot of full-color documents without understanding that people don't have the ability or the printing equipment to print them out. organizations i deal with don't have a color printer. and i tell them they have to go on to print out documents that are on the p.i.m., and they can't print them out. so one of the things that is sorely needed in the planning department, mr. bintliff included, is working with people that are not naysayers on

housing, we want to do housing, but have an understanding of what limitations are from the planning department records right now, and they should have a conversation, a working group, i don't want to say a working group. working groups are overused, but they should really use the ability for people in the community to give feedback. the p.i.m. is offline on weekends occasionally for upgrading and things like that, and the faster the projects move through without the ability to get documents from the -- get applications. the planning department staff people all the time send me, when i request an application, they say they have a standard language saying look to the p.i.m. the p.i.m. is not the answer. when you want to have an application and forwarded to

people in the neighborhood to understand what the project is. the application is really important. not go to the p.i.m., which is what the staff default is. so i'm asking people to be involved with the real world, you're the representatives of the public, and they should be the representatives of the public, as well. the public is having problems getting documents. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you, ms. hester. any other public comment on this item? okay, with that, public comment is closed. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: mr. bintliff? >> yes? >> commissioner moore: this is great work, it's very exciting to see. your presentation was outstanding. i have a question to page 8, where you kind of said, well, we'll get back to that, but i did not hear yet. i was wondering why under item 5 there's such an incredible spread in scheduling target hearing dates, because you were

saying six to 22 months, and that's huge. that is half a year to two years. and could you explain a little bit of why that is? >> definitely. so those time frames are in the executive directive, and those are the time frames that are laid out, depending on the type of environmental review. so the six-month time frame is not a ceqa project, nine months for ceqa exemptions, 12 months for mitigated declarations and cpes and the eirs are between 18 and 22 months. so really what we're talking about is eight to 12 to what we do. >> commissioner moore: purpose is to give different types of projects appropriate time frames. the other question i have, and i'm only saying that because yesterday i did my sunshine training, and it talked about retrieval of documents and in electronic data retrieval it gets much harder for people, for example, to see the whole

project file when something was revised, et cetera, et cetera, as data submitted online, date stamped, revisions that architects make to their drawings, properly noted, we have many projects that we review, but i can never tell when the latest revision was made, because architects, apparently, skip over that particular piece and we don't sometimes know if this is the latest version or something in between. particularly when it comes to sunshine ordinance going to where i got stuck yesterday, that is a very important part for the public to have insight into the history of what happened, when, and how do you see managing that? because sometimes with electronic data, we use the word garbage in, garbage out, depending on who submits and who is accurate, you're able to track it or you are not. are you addressing that possibility? >> absolutely. and, of course, that issue was present, as well, with paper documents, depending on whether

people put a date when they signed it or didn't and what they called the document. we've known about this issue. we also have frustrations sometimes finding the right documents. one thing we recently did was adopt standard naming conventions for the entire department, because we had the environmental planning division had one standard and different carts of current planning had a different condition, so plans, underscore, whatever, v2, or the date. in addition to that, you know, under our current system you're relying on every individual planner to manually enter that in and do that correctly every single time. we have switched to where we're using a program called m-file, that we have the ability now to control what things are called, when they are saved, and it has kind of a lot of functions inside of it where you say, do you want to make a new version, do you want to roll back to the old version, and it kind of automatically handles the record retention that previously we relied on everyone to be

thoughtful and thorough every single time they moved the document around their computer. this is something that i'm focused on right now and hoping we can see a lot of improvement in over the next six months, because quite frankly if it's causing confusion externally, we are pulling our hair out internally. >> commissioner moore: thank you for saying that. i'm confident on the thoroughness of your answer that you're on top of it. thank you. >> secretary: commissioner richards. >> commissioner richards: thank you very much. you do realize you're the first process analyst in the city, 30,000 people, because we had to spend so much time writing your job description. you don't know that? that's why it took so long to get you here, according to the secretary, which i remember proposing this in the 2015 budget, so i'm glad you're here and it's great work. i really, really am. just a couple of questions, you know, i do hear what mr. vettel says in the flow chart that you have in the back, where does

that lapse kind of reside, and how do we actually start parsing those big blocks and say this is where we can start shaving some time with maybe more detailed sub process documents? >> yeah, so for now, you know, it's kind of working backwards from your goals, right, the overarching goal right now is to make sure once the project description is ready to go for thorough analysis, we're getting it done in the time frames the directive had. goal number one. once we make progress on that, we can begin to shift further back and more upstream into that process and say, okay, well maybe it doesn't need to take -- maybe we don't need 90 days to do the plan check later, maybe once we get it done and once the development community and the applicant community has kind of internalized the new standards, as well, maybe we can do it in 60 days, and we'll be looking at it in that way to see where can we move that down. i would say, for example, something like the notice of incomplete application where it says we have up to 30 days.

actually we're getting them done 17 on average. a lot of them are basically same day. if the application is ready to go, it's ready to go. so we tried to really make it clear what is required to be complete and we're always working on that. so our hope is a lot of those things will condense, but also, you know, it's a question of having reasonable expectations and goals that you then kind of shift as you make progress. so we're trying to continue to make it manageable, but also continually pushing ourselves to improve on that. >> commissioner richards: great. so one of the complaints that i've heard from people is they have a project, they go to talk to person a and get a certain answer and then all of a sudden person a's not there for whatever reason, reassigned to person b and they get a different answer. where's the standardization in terms of what the right answer is? is it a training issue? you know, is it an interpretation issue? where do you see tension there?

>> well, we have the department, website, and planning center, so we staff, the pick, for example, is staffed every day and you don't know who may or may not be on shift at that time. that's a basically, you want to know if you want to do a cafe, what do you need to do. when we get people getting into complicated issues or gray area, the answer is, put in a ppa or do a project review meeting for about $400 and check off, i need preservation there, i need someone who knows about the density bonus there and we talk to you about what do you need to do and maybe the next step would be the ppa. once the conversation gets to a level where you have a lot of details where it's going to be hard for two people to give you a consistent answer, the thing to do is file for one of the standards options that we have to get us on record of saying what the planning department's best judgment was and then as i mentioned earlier, with all of our documents now, the ppa and going forward, we have put them

all into one document so the entire department is speaking with one voice instead of getting the let me call the planner and see what the answer is. >> commissioner richards: great. couple of smaller questions. this was a big one, as a percent of the total project cost, where is entitlements and building permit polling? >> i'm sorry? >> commissioner richards: project costs, we always get -- we're the punching bag. hey, there's a delay in planning, planning, planning's causing all these projects to fail and then we have construction costs, material costs, available capital. where, as a percent of 100, what is your best guess as to what the entitlement process costs, what the mr. vettels and architects and, you know, is it 10%? what's our -- >> yeah, i mean, i don't have a direct answer for that, because we don't know what that is and it changes on the project. what i can say, for what it's worth as a former financial

consultant, any pro forma puts in 20% for soft costs. that's everything. that's the lawyers, that's the architects, that's -- somewhere in that number is the entitlement costs. i can't imagine it's more than half of that. we haven't done that analysis, because we don't really have access to the pro forma side. we know how much we're charging in application fees, but it's about more than that. there's a delay, what's the cost of the delay, and that's kind of a subjective matter to put a number on that. >> commissioner richards: i think it would be great to understand this, given we have such a big backlog. the other one is, you know, we hear from the staff and the director, sometimes there's five different revisions of a project back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. seems like you're taking on the burden of both the developers and your back, so how do you take into account the developer where they sit and have to redesign it and x, y, z, because could be five times. your measure is from end to end but includes all that time in

the middle as their responsibility. do you set deadlines for them on when they should get back to you? >> we don't, because no one is required to develop. for example, it goes in one direction, you're coming to us to do a development project, the way we try to make it as seamless as possible is putting out the clearest information, being much more consistent with holding people to our standards and having this formal -- this application is not complete for the following reasons, not that planner is uptight about this item, and he told me it wasn't such a big deal. no, we're doing the letter and doing it consistently. so people understand, if they know what the bar is, they can get good at crossing that bar. our hope is people will get more used to that and we're not going to need to have so many rounds of, you missed this, you missed that. that's our hope. >> commissioner richards: maybe there could be some type of incentive offered for them to actually perform faster, just like you're holding yourself accountable. this commission's toyed with the idea of kind of a "use it or

lose it" provision to actually get stuff built. i would like to this commission to re-examine that issue. we had -- i think we required one project to actually perform one year earlier than the standard conditions of approval. we all know what that project was, and i think that's something that we should consider here. you know, you don't go back, you pull the site permit or you pull a building permit, you're basically never have to come back and tell us why you didn't build it. i think that's too lax of a standard. we need some other different requirement, and a couple now granular things, in this new preservation kind of, like, quick read, whatever you want to call it, i have a building that's a "b" and i come to you and you say i think it's an "a" because of a, b, c type of construction, blah, blah, blah, is there new designation in the p.i.m. that this has been looked at and it's suspiciously an "a"?

>> b-plus, a-minus. >> commissioner richards: is there a designation, i banded my project and somebody else comes in and goes, oh, it's an a-minus? >> two things, we're going to stick to the system of a, b, and c, but you could get to an a designation or b designation because you submitted a project application and went through the whole process and ended up there or through the new historic resource assessment, so what we'll do is update p.i.m. based on the hra and it will be a project in the history of the project. oh, i see there was an hra done, obviously, that's how we got to that result, that document will be right there. >> commissioner richards: sure. >> you can look at it that way. >> commissioner richards: on page 6, historic survey, we talked about this when we had the joint hpc meeting. it says ongoing.

i'd really understand, and we mentioned this in the meeting, what percent of the city has been surveyed, how many eligible districts are there. >> i think we're coming to you on that soon. >> commissioner richards: i'm reiterating on that. i know you are, but i wanted to go on the record. streamline residential design guidelines c-34 and c-35. i thought that was coming in 2019, but you have here effective june 2018 and august 2018. >> well, let's see. i mean, we did do the urban design guidelines, that happened last year, so that was implemented. >> commissioner richards: right. >> the smaller scale projects are still under way. no, i think that may be just a typo, i'm sorry. yeah. >> commissioner richards: no problem. >> yeah, still working on that. >> commissioner richards: okay, great. one last thing, i read in the news, i caught that, because it's a big issue for a lot of the neighborhood groups. wow, r.d.g.s, snuck them in somehow. we have this thing for cashless

transactions. the city wants to actually pass a law for the people unbanked and it's roughly 8% to 10% of the population, so some of us think of, well, cash, you know, why would we need cash, but you have to start thinking like ms. hester said, people that aren't planning people. i actually had a meeting with somebody yesterday, and it was somebody i know and they said, hey, i want to do this project. go to the p.i.m., okay, now what do i do. i think there needs to be some type of a help button. in fact, interesting thing to me, i put the address of the parcel in and kept pushing enter, enter, nothing was happening. the little magnifying glass was what you had, intuitive. i get where -- but the amount of information, it's staggering. but i think for somebody who's not knowing what they are looking for, it is a bit hard, so you might want to do some type of a help or f.a.q.s with

the pim, but it is amazing, so much better than the old one. great work. >> president melgar: commissioner koppel. >> commissioner koppel: great report, mr. bintliff. i think the most important thing that was said about all this is this does improve morale. it lessens stress, it increases productivity, which we all need. and i've firsthand seen this more so at the end of the hearings. we're not necessarily getting the different conclusions. we're getting the same conclusions, but getting to them a lot faster with respect to the r.d.t., discretionary reviews at the end of the hearing, so i personally wanted to thank everyone for just making that happen. >> president melgar: thank you. i just -- okay. i just wanted to chime in and say thank you very much. it's an outstanding presentation, and i think the thoughtfulness that's gone into

doing a systems analysis and coming up with effective ways to, you know, use technology and also be more user friendly is outstanding. i have to chime in and say that, you know, what you brought up, commissioner richards, already kind of happens. i mean, i think in the two years i've been in this commission, i've seen development teams that do an outstanding job of presenting staff, working with the staff, working with the community, putting all their stuff together, and they breeze through this process. and then i've seen development teams that don't so much. and so in all of that it's really easy to blame the process and say the process takes a long time instead of saying, hey, maybe we should have done this a little bit differently. so i'm just going to leave that there, because i do think that already happens, and it's really

easy to blame public servants, to blame the bureaucracy, because it's not a single person, it's just that out there. i do think we have outstanding staff at the planning department, and i do believe that you guys have done a great job in creating these efficiencies and redesigning the system and making it work. so thank you. >> thank you. >> president melgar: okay. director? >> thank you. i just also wanted to thank jacob. one of the most things i'm impressed with is his thoroughness and knowledge in the details he's developed so quickly. it's really impressive and helpful, and he's developed great relationships across the department, which also helps, because staff is willing to go to him with ideas in how we do business. that issue of we often get this back and forth with development teams about who is delaying stuff, right, is it staff, is it the developers, the architect, whoever. and i think mr. vettel eluded to it in his comments, as well,

during the project description phase. and i do think that we can't, of course, control what a developer and architect does and how much time they take to make a revision or something and that sometimes does take a long time. one of the things i would like us to start doing, and i've asked staff to look at this, is when there are delays that are kind of beyond the norm, is to have a way of kind of notifying the developer that they will affect their final deadline, that they are holding up the final deadline, because they are taking three months to do a revision or something of that nature. so it's important that we keep in touch on this and also it's a form of, if you will, proactive project management. hey, we're trying to keep your deadline. you have to help us do that. [ please stand by ]

we are on item 14. nonprofit organizations' first right to purchase multi-family residential buildings. i thought there was one more item between us. good afternoon commissioners. i'm from the city wide division. for today we have a piece of legislation from supervisor that would give qualified -- to purchase multi-family rental buildings. i would like to invite people here from the mayor's office and give an introduction and say a few words.

>> clerk: thank you. hi. >> good afternoon, commissioners, happy valdes-fauli. i'm the legislative aide to supervisor fure. thank you for holding this hearing today to create the community opportunity to purchase act. it's an innovative policy designed to stabilize diverse communities in san francisco by preventing displacement and preserving affordable housing. this legislation grants qualified affordable housing nonprofits a first right to purchase multi-family residential buildings in vacant lots for the purpose of creating and preserving permanently affordable housing. by giving qualified nonprofits the first right to purchase and stabilize rent control buildings as permanently affordable housing we have the opportunity to challenge the notion that homeownership is the only secure form of housing. once a nonprofit purchases a

building the building will be permanently taken off the speculative market. according to this department's latest housing balance report, less than 18% of net new units built in san francisco in the past 10 years have been affordable. and for every two new affordable units the city abilities it lost one rent controlled unit to owner move in he vick shuns and condo conversions. we can't afford to continue to take two steps forward and one step back. we'll provide affordable housing nonprofits with a critical tool to stop the bleeding by purchasing multi-family buildings from landlords looking to sell and preserving them as permanently affordable housing. this is a win/win for landlords and tenants. it protects a landlords ability to sell their building of market rate and preventing --

it combats the speculative model by providing a positive way for property owners to sell their property and preserve the existing residence rather than resorting to speculators and he vick shuns. it is a within also for san francisco as it will help this city better meet its housing balance needs by preventing the loss of affordable housing and increasing its stock of permanently affordable housing. and it perfectly aligns with the planning department's goals and recommendations laid out in the mission action plan 2020 as well as its housing affordability and community stabilization strategies. planning and the mayor's office of housing and community development have held town halls to talk about these strategies and we need this tool to make this vision a reality. up front investment in keeping people housed than rehousing homeless people displaced by speculators. it doesn't create a new funding

stream for acquisitions the supervisor and her colleagues sought to secure $40 million from the latest funds. moving forward, our office will continue to pursue more funding streams and will work to improve the small sites program. this will give us the chance to acquire and preserve not only small sites but also sro. i want to thank the stakeholder groups who worked with our office in crafting this critical legislation including the housing rights committee, the council of community housing organizations, the san francisco community land trust, bishop, ccdc, and others. thank you also to amy chan with the mayor's office of housing by providing feedback on the finer details of this proposal. thank you to planning staff for reviewing this legislation and giving it a positive recommendation to the commission. we hope to have your support on this critical legislation to advance our collective goal of

housing affordability and community stabilization. this is what development without displacement looks like. thank you. >> thank you very much. is ms. chan making a presentation? yes, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. ifm owe from the mayor's office of housing and community development. we want to thank the supervisor for her work to advance more preservation and anti-displacement tools and our office shares in that objective. currently our work in this area includes the small sites program. a rehabilitation and acquisition program for preserving and preventing rent controlled buildings at risk of conversion to market. we see value in providing a right of first offer or refusal to compliment our work in the small sites program and we think this is a tool that could potentially provide competitive advantage to affordable housing

developers to acquire rent control sites and create permanent affordability. we are working with the supervisor's office to shape the legislation in the way where we think the application of this tool could be used very effectively and specifically will be talking to the supervisor's office about the eligibility of sites, the el ij built of the organizations and how this right should be implemented. we look forward to working with her to deal with these questions and to work with her on the legislation. thank you. >> thank you, ms. chan. >> i'll give you a summary of the legislation. it involves amendments to the administrative code and would create a first right of refusal for certain qualifying nonprofit organizations to purchase for sale rental buildings and vacant lots on which multi-family housing can be built. the types of properties that

would be subject to this first right include residential y'all buildings with three or more rental units as well as privately owned vacant lots with the zone potential for three or more units. in order to qualify to receive the right of first refusal, an organization would need to be bona fide nonprofit organization and it would have to have acquired at least two buildings under the small sites program in the previous three years. the right of first refusal would consist of two rights. the first right of a first offer. a seller of a qualifying property would be required to notify all of the qualified nonprofits of the intent to sell before putting it on the open market. those nonprofits would have a period of time to put together an offer and the seller would then be free to either accept that offer for reject it and proceed onto the open market. the second right is a right of

first refusal so if the seller gets an offer on a property either an unsolicited offer or gone through the first right and rejected and gone out to the open market, they will then be required to offer that property at the same price and with the same terms to the qualified nonprofits. properties with existing rental units purchased through this program would be subject to affordability requirements than are similar to the small sights program. all existing tenants in the buildings acquired would be permitted to stay under their existing leases, the terms of their existing leases. a right of first refusal or some version of it is one of the key recommendations of our department's map 2020 action plan. similar laws like the one in d.c., similar but though different, suggest that this could be a valuable tool for preserving existing affordable

housing and protecting vulnerable rental households. the legislation does not involve a change to the planning code and our department wouldn't necessarily be involved so much in the implementation of the program, we're certainly supportive of the legislation and concept as well as any future amendments that might make the program as successful and implementable as possible. so that concludes my presentation. the three of us are available for any questions after public comment. thank you. >> thank you very much. we will now take public comment on this item. i have a few speaker cards. (the names are being read out for speakers.) if you want to speak on this item line up on my left, please. you can come up. >> clerk: good afternoon, madam

president and commissioners. i want to thank you for the opportunity for us to have a community voice present in this hearing today. i would like to also acknowledge and thank supervisor's office, her staff and all of the stakeholder partners that put forward the legislation that has just been presented to you. i'm here today speaking in different hats. i am a board member of the san francisco community land trust which is a registered nonprofit in the city that was one of the partner organizations involved with the drafting of this legislation. but i'm here today as an individual beneficiary of this model because this model that has been put before you very much mirrors the model that the san francisco community land trust has been espousing across our city to provide affordable housing for people like myself. when i lost my long-term housing that was a rent controlled building that i had for 27 years in the mission district, i had nowhere to go. because of my work in the

community doing nonprofit work, including with the james community center that works with youth development which is a crucial contribution to our city and its future somebody like myself would have been priced out of this city. fortunately i was able to get into one of the san francisco community land trust's cooperatives, the purple house located on oak street. we were one of the first properties that some of you might be aware of. i'm really grateful for that because having that shelter has allowed me to continue the work that i do advocating for youth and working with human rights issues both inside this country and abroad. this opportunity is a chance to level the playing field for bona fide nonprofits like ssclt and metta to not be placed at a disadvantage but this is an opportunity for the city to take a courageous stand to

understand that this housing crisis and all of its repercussions, including the homeless crisis, including how it affects our youth and displaces our teachers calls for radical courage. this is a time to take a stand. and we welcome the opportunity for all of you to partner with us and thank you for the vision that you have laid out for 2020. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> hello, commissioners, thank you for this opportunity. my name is lee ann and i'm a community engagement organizers. the community network. san francisco has an affordable housing crisis. since 2011 this has added 500,000 more jobs and we have conducted a study that tech

companies have increased to 1,000%. this has exacerbated the wealth gap and housing crisis and we all know it. homelessness and evictions all around. we're globally known to have the problem with no solution. the city established resolutions creating cultural districts but we are losing our residents. for some of our 5,000 residents have been downsized to 2100. we have outdated state laws that are used and manipulated and scapegoated like the owner move-ins that evicting long-time residents and sweeping out the seeds of our history and culture. it is embarrassing and we need a solution. we need a sense of stability. legislation that can maintain our cultural vibrance and generations to come.

the community to purchase act is a solution to preserve permanently affordable housing. let's think of the aecurity of our long-term residents. skoourgt for preserving the culture of our communities. let's work together and pass this legislation. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon commissioners. my name is jean, a tenant counselor. and we're asking for your support for the community opportunity to purchase act or copa. many communities color have been displaced in soma due to high rents, affordable development of luxury and market grade apartments. we copya the opportunity for nonprofit organizations to purchase multi-family

residential y'all individuals. affordable rent rates and assures existing tenants they can stay in their existing units. we've lost 2500 philippiney families. in order to preserve the existing families of color in communities we must support copa. it will be beneficial not only for existing tenants but give succeeding generations the opportunity to live in the nonprofit multi-family residential buildings and be able to work and serve in their communities, please support copa. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is simon. i am an organizer for a nonprofit housing in the tender loin and i live in nonprofit housing. i'm just here to speak in support and favor for the copa. i think it makes a lot of sense to have this policy.

it is not unusual for my work to come across residents who are asking hey, they are increasing our rents. our building is being sold. is there anything we can do? my line of work we organize around it. with this at the very least we don't have to get to that point. if nonprofits are allowed to purchase these sites, keep it permanently affordable i think that's a win for everybody. so i implore this commission to please approve this policy and thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hi, folks. i'm miles sherwood. i live in one of the land trust houses. i moved to the city when i was 19 in 1984. participated in the culture, influenced the culture to some extent because of my work in the art environment. i want to emphasize the concept of a long-time resident. these are people who have participated in the city.

shaped the city, contributed to the culture it's famous for. voted for the politicians year in and year out. i was a bike messenger for years. used to come to this building a lot. trust me, i know the city like the back of my hand. i never thought there would be a time limit on my time here. i moved to the city and had to live with one roommate. i now live with nine in order to keep that going. i would really like to emphasize the long-time residents have built the present here and i would really like to urge that you pass copa. thank you. >> i'll call a few more names. you can come up. david woo, alexa, mary claire, erika and raymond. >> i'm sam look. i work on the coalition of homelessness and also a long time resident born and raised in san francisco. i'm here in support of the

community and opportunity to purchase act. growing up, so many of my family and friends can no longer afford to live in san francisco and i'm also someone who works on a daily basis with homeless families youth and adults and we see so many people who have been evicted or priced out of their homes. and we really, really fight tooth and nail to keep people in their homes before they are evicted because we know what it's like on the other side when you are experiencing homelessness and without a home and you have to be on the mat on a floor and wait to get into the shelter for four to six weeks and wait years just to get back into affordable housing or back into public housing. we just see so much of the physical and mental deterioration of people who are living on the street. and so i can't stress enough the importance of copa and really it's a necessary tool to prevent our most vulnerable

households from homelessness and work upstream in a way that is much more humane but also cost effective. we know the majority of our homeless population, 70% were housed here before they became homeless. this is one of the key ways to end homelessness so that we can keep people in their homes and prevent homelessness, stabilize communities, preserve housing and protect tenants who need it the most. thank you so much. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is olivia and i work at the coalition on homelessness and also a resident of district 1. i'm here today to support the community opportunity to purchase. this plan for nonprofits to be alerted and have prioritized negotiation in city building acquisition would be a tremendous benefit for the city in putting a d*ent in the current homelessness crisis. we can have all the emergency shelters, drop-in centers or

additional mats on the floor for cold and rainy weather like today but none of it works to fix the root cause of homelessness, no affordable housing. through copa already built apartments and can be released for public use and affordably house folks otherwise out on the streets. also it will deter the massive displacement of sf natives and people of color forced the leave the city because of high rent and lack of affordable housing. copa is a great opportunity to prevent homelessness in the city and i urge you to support this idea. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. happy valentine's day. my name is curtis brad forward, an organizer for one of the nonprofit housing developers in san francisco and i'm also the co-chair of the tender loin people's congress and here to speak in favor of copa.

we're having a housing crisis and in my community in the tender loin we're seeing a lot of displacement. we've been in a struggle with one landlord who bought the property supposed to be rent controlled. turns out it wasn't. gone through a whole thing with him. now he resold it. we don't know who bought it. we tried our organization tried to step in and tried to purchase the property but there really wasn't dialogue there. if this had been in effect all of that perhaps might have been avoided. we're talking this was a larger building but still i think it would have applied and so i really think that given the climate and the crisis we're in, this building was flipped twice in what, three years? half of the residents are already gone. it has been a process. i'm just thinking given the climate we're in, any tool that

we can create that is reasonable and fair, that we can use to even make a small change in what's happening out there, we need to access every tool. we need to be bold, we need to be creative and thinking of every solution and every opportunity we can to find ways to keep people in their homes because once -- to take it off the speculative market. once they're on the street it costs a lot more money to put them back in housing. we know it's better. we have to keep people in their houses to begin with and so i really encourage you to put this through unanimously with all your support. let's get this done and thank you for your consideration. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, david woo with is south market community action network. we're in full support of the community opportunity to purchase act that would allow nonprofits to more easily purchase existing residential buildings in san francisco.

we were at the forefront of advocating for this piece of legislation as it related to the impending central soma plan that rezones for luxury office and -- due to the impacts of that plan we demanded stronger measures surrounding protection of existing tenants and preservation of existing housing in the plan if it was to be passed. these demands included that the city pass a strong copa legislation and that the city aggressively purchase existing residential buildings. we're very excited that this legislation is moving forward. one of the largest issues faced by organizations that do work surrounding the purchasing of residential building through the land trust model is the fact there is no mechanism to insure that residential buildings that go up for sale on the private market that a nonprofit is interested is actually sold to the nonprofit.

tenants, community organizations and nonprofits that organize tenants in a building that are in my cases at direct risk of displacement. they can secure financing to purchase the building and can make an offer of purchase to the owner that is looking to sell but that's it. there is nothing that currently exists to give nonprofits a leg up in the private market to purchase these buildings. many times all of that work ends with he vick shuns shuns and lots of residents and families from san francisco. with this legislation it would change representing a huge step forward in protecting and preserving vulnerable communities in the south market and across the entire city. by allowing qualified nonprofits the right of first offer and first refusal for multi-unit residential buildings it would greatly contribute to this effort of purchasing existing buildings city wide. the land trust model that the acquisition program is based off of is proven to be effective by protecting tenants in their homes and preserving

existing housing in san francisco. please support this legislation. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is andrew. i'm a resident of soma. what we discussed today is a story you already noe. it is happening all over the city. indeed all over the country. in a society predicated on capitalism perhaps it hardly seems fair to criticize those who find reliable, efficient income. when is newfoundland? my associates and i do not seek to eliminate profit or block construction of housing, not at all. rather to set limits. to re-examine priorities and propose solutions. copa puts a great solution in the hands of the community. these comments will drive this approach, maintain what we love

about living in our city. if we don't do this now the classism of our housing realities here only get more out of hand. if we don't do this now will there be any more filipinos in the district? will people who work here live here? will anyone be actually from here anymore? thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, planning commission. i'm mary claire. i'm here today in support of the copa legislation. i'm a resident of the south of market. most of my family still live in the tender loin today. my grandpa, father, five aunts and uncles moved from the philippines in the 60s. the family got bigger and at one point we occupied an entire floor of this building. one of most vivid memories of

running up and down the calls with my cousins. measuring my height on the hallway walls every year. as much as i love living in this building studio apartments are not big enough to raise multiple children so my immediate family is left to this day. my family still occupies two of the 30 units in this building. six units in total being occupied. the youngest member of my family that lives there is my 3-year-old niece. my disabled epileptic cousin and my aunt who retired from working in the post office many years ago. my parents live down the street and every year their rent increases. currently they pay more than $2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment while my family still play close to what the rent was when they first came in the 60s. i believe that's precisely why they have never wanted to move and i fear that one day they will be forced to leave because

rent controlled apartments have become a prime target for speculation. six of the 30 units are occupied. the majority of the building remains vacant. it is not about just preserving buildings but fam leels who have been here for generations so they can continue to live here for many more generations to come. my niece runs up and down the same hallways we used the play in as a child and every year i measure her height next to the same measurements my mom did for me. i want her future children to do the same. we have a filipino cultural heritage district. you can't have that kind of district without filipinos. something we say all the time because a large majority of our population live in the rent controlled units and fear losing them. i encourage all of you not just to support the presentation of rent controlled building but support the preservation of families and cultures for generations to come and you can do that by supporting copa. >> next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon, i'm alexa and i am a soma resident. in 2014 i was evicted and it was a tough situation for my mother and i to go through. a stressful event. as a junior in high school and at the time finding housing for both of us was tough and also to taking care of my mother. she was so stressed where we would live and how are we going to make it? and we've been based in the soma for 20 plus years. we were assuming we would live there forever. fortunately we were able to find housing around the corner but of course paying rent was an issue. our rent jumped from $300 to $1,500. because we wanted to stay in the soma because we lived there for so long and use the resources and my mom has been working here we wanted to stay there. that was the case.

the last couple months haven't been easy as well. in august 2018 our building was foreclosed on and the former manager was harassing and threatening to shut off utilities and water. people came unannounced to our house. whether it was potential buyers or the realtor selling our building. there was a poor communication between the real estate and bank. rubbingly with the we were able to work with people of the community. by passing copa it will help many families stay. we want to stay here for our families and their future families. please pass copa so my family, other families, seniors, work and working class can live peacefully in our home of soma. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> i will read off a few names, trace, fernando, tony, keith,

jordan, theresa and devin. >> clerk: i am theresa, director from a housing program. as you know, our organization we provide pre-and post application housing assistance. educational workshops on housing. in our drop-in clinics we always see tons of people looking for affordable housing and we know that affordable housing is not enough. copa is a great mechanism to add more affordable housing and at the same time a great preservation tool for the communities, especially for the filipino cultural heritage districts and other communities that are at risk of displacement. even though the affordable housing nowadays have four or five preferences, it is not enough really to prioritize

people. it doesn't have preferences for people who are going through harassment. it doesn't have preferences for people who are in inhabitable housing situations. this mechanisms and tool is a great tool in order for people to really stay in their housing and to preserving the housing stock that we have and actually at risk of being lost. so i support -- for you to support the community opportunity to purchase act. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, i'm fernando with the council of community housing organizations in support of this legislation. hope you are all having a great valentine's day since it is valentine's day i decided to be a little cheesy. we're here to show our love for our tenants, our love for our residents and our love for our homes here in san francisco. love doesn't certainly come full blown but it grows over time and it has been a long

time coming to create this piece of legislation. in 2007-2008 we started having hearings and discussions in the mission district about housing preservation program that became a piece of legislation in 2009 that created the first funding stream for our small sights program. in 2014 the mayor rolled out a program and we now have close to 100 buildings of permanently affordable housing preserved for our tenants and now the next stage of that love, creating a pathway for opportunities for nonprofits to buy these buildings when they go on sale. love is not easy as we are reminded. for every two steps forward there is one step back of buildings that we lose that could be rent controlled buildings that become condo converted or tics. copa creates the opportunity to