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 preserve those buildings and get ahead of flipping of off-market sales, of speculation. to get ahead of foreclosures. imagine if we had had something like copa when some properties went bankrupt and began -- were on sale in the middle of the recession. and it is not just about small

sites. it is important to remember what we are creating here is creating a pathway for not just small sites that those rco buildings and other buildings we're losing to become tech dormitories or other uses. sometimes with all the glitz in the city it feels like there is little love left here but i think copa really shows that we are creating real pathways to preserve our tenants and residents. we hope you'll support this legislation as it moves through. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> happy valentine's day commissioners. tony, senior disability action. not a whole lot i can add to what has already been said. of course we advocate for and with seniors and people with disabilities. previous speaker had mentioned the fact that we need something in place because sro buildings are being lost to tourist and

tech dorms and things like that. so it's just another tool in the tool shed, if you will, and something that can be used in order to mitigate a lot of the damage that has been done to our communities. we've heard people from the soma filipino cultural district. it is not just soma filipinos, it is our culture as a whole. diversity gets hurt through real estate speculation. we know it has no regard for culture. whoever brings the most money to the table gets heard. so this is a way that we can get heard. again, love is patient and love is kind, okay? but we have been very, very, patient for a very, very long time and we need this as part of a mitigating tool in order to preserve the community that we do have left.

because we've been losing our community. losing our heart and spirit and i commend a lot of people that continue to come to these meetings and fight and advocate for our community to let us know that all is not lost. that we need to keep our people here and that's something that we'll do. senior and disability action are in favor of the copa proposal. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is keith cooley. i am a resident of district 1 and i work as sfcot, the san francisco community land trust. sfcot stabilizes housing for tenants vulnerable to displacement by transferring residential buildings into community ownership.

we remove land and housing forever from the speculative market. we, the board of directors, the membership, and the staff at our organization wholeheartedly support the proposed community opportunity to purchase legislation. copa is a key part of our strategy to preserve affordable housing forever. copa will enable our organization to compete fairly without disadvantage on the open market to acquire residential buildings where tenants are vulnerable to no-fault evictions and other forms of displacement. we urge you to support this measure. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is jordan davis and

i'm an sro tenant in district 6 and i'm really in support of this and it is rare that i come to this commission in support of something. usually i'm screaming my head off about something. i can tell you, i was -- i'm actually a graduate of the 18 month leadership program and i can tell you horror story after horror story of tenants being harassed. the purpose behind the harassment is to get them out because like these private sros are under the rental market and there is incentive for landlords to evict. the thing is, this housing act needs to cover everybody from large sites to small sites. because housing is an ecosystem. when an sro tenant gets displaced they end up on streets because it's often the last stop before homelessness. if someone else gets displaced from a small or large site apartment there are

competitions for the private sro room which then -- then that is having an impact right there. and also we got -- speaking of including everyone, i do believe that should also cover duplexes as well as single family rentals. they are -- especially that. single family rentals can't be controlled by rent control. this legislation would move us toward a future where land is not on the spec ulative market and we wouldn't necessarily need rent control. we would have community control over housing and keep it permanently affordable. i hope that when housing gets acquired and is purchased by nonprofits that the tenants really are in control and that they don't -- and they get to guide the future and guide the

policies around the housing and don't put any unnecessary burdens. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, i'm joy, i'm here in support of copa. providing tenant protections for three years now and we're seeing a lot of small properties being acquired by speculators with the sole purpose to evict tenants to make more profit. through copa we believe it will provide more opportunities to preserve these properties from becoming speculator's commodities and the properties will be preserved and remain homes for all rentors that belong in the community. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i'm devin richardson, the director of

real estate in community at the san francisco housing development corporation, a native of san francisco and chair the african-american art of cultural district of hunter's point. i'm here to speak in support of the copa legislation. san francisco housing development corporation for the past 30 years its mission has been to stem the tide of displacement from san francisco that has disproportion naturally affected people of color. today we address this inequality through affordable housing development, financial empowerment, community and economic development and support of service provision to san francisco's low and moderate income communities of color. over the past three years we've attempted to work within san francisco's small sites program recognizing community based asset management is key in

stabilizing neighborhoods and preventing further displacement. the neighborhood level preservation of affordable housing options in hunters point and other places is critical where over 50% of the existing african-american residents are rent burdened according to the san francisco planning department's 2018 san francisco housing needs and trends report. one of the challenges we face as a nonprofit organization is moving fast enough to acquire multi-unit properties on the open market and protect vulnerable tenants from losing their housing. oftentimes for-profit investors with different goals are able to move faster and potentially increase rents and displacing tenants. we'll never build our way out of the affordable housing crisis. that's deploying every tool we have to preserve existing affordable housing is essential in insuring all families regardless of income level can

have a future here in san francisco. we already working to grow our small sites acquisition pipeline but looking for strong leadership from the city to insure a path exists for qualified nonprofits to have a chance in the first place to purchase buildings and preserve affordable homes in our community. we urge you to support this legislation. thank you. >> thank you, mr. richardson. next speaker, please. >> i'm from the senior and disability action as well as from north beach. i think of a poem that was written a number of years ago. the author will be 100 this month. it was titled the old italians are dying. and this has certainly been more of the case in the last 15 years where as the older italian owners of multi-unit buildings died, the children did not want, they lived elsewhere or they didn't want to be responsible for a

building. because typically the owners lived in the building and the tenants were also family. we had a very stable neighborhood, people always looked after each other. but when those owners had no other choice and they died, kids didn't want the building. it was a matter of just putting it on the market and that's where speculation came in and has really destroyed my community where i raised my son. he was born 30 years ago today. i think a lot about what was and what can be is with copa, these old-time owners have a choice that could also help to stabilize the communities that they raised their children in, that they had family members also in the neighborhood. that is so important to our elders today is to know the faces on the streets. and with all of the evictions,

the speculation, that has been -- everything that we've known has been destroyed and we need to stabilize once again our communities and make sure that housing is affordable to those who also come after us all. and so copa is a really great idea and it is something that i think we can talk with all of the current owners of multi-unit buildings today as an option that they can secure that rather than allowing it to go on the speculative market and as long as the -- as long as the idea of the gold rush is on, as long as that is out there, speculation is going to continue. having one more tool in the box to mitigate this, this is copa. so please support. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm raymond and the organizer for the saddle market community

action network. i urge you to support copa. i have had a chance and privilege to work with a lot of qualified none profits to purchase properties. i'm telling you it is a hard process, a long process. in the soma, we just recently worked with mission housing to purchase a building that has historical significance. it took us two to three years, a lot of community pressure to preserve the history of the building. but the tenants and it took about two different qualified nonprofits just to purchase this property and we finally got it. it is a long stretch. we are always up against somebody with -- that is willing to pay with cash money. always up against speculators and developments and helping

with a building currently. alexa said they are being harassed constantly while trying to purchase this property, this property has been listed on a bidding website 10 times now. the qualified nonprofits are being ignored. i know we've been working with the san francisco community land trust and they're trying to reach out and being ignored. by passing copa this will help qualified none profits. it will help the building living there for a long time. i want to add, too, that we just recently lost four families through eviction at the end of january. a family living there for more than 25 years, multi-generational family. there is an 85 and 92-year-old seniors, 8-year-old child and somebody with physical and mental disability. we just lost -- they got

evicted through an eviction. we tried to work with the landlord to try to see if we could purchase this building. like i said they're being ignored. so please, help us by supporting copa and passing copa. help us protect the family, san franciscoians, the long term tenants, people of color, everybody in san francisco. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, happy valentine's day. congratulations commissioner paul. good luck to you. when i was sitting here listening i thought about the fourplex next to the carl jenson property and while that was going on, the neighbors there were all left -- all left. the other neighbors wanted them to come and talk about mr. jenson and they were gone and that property, which is a fourplex, has sold, the entitlement was sold at a fair

increase before it's even done and still not done and still underway. but i wanted to show this because i guess it's why this legislation is need. may i have the overhead, please? it's a really nice, typical san francisco building in the mission. they're asking 1,250,000. what scared me about this was that it's tenant occupied and had significant bankable rents. i guess the rents have been kept low so that at some point whether it was out of the goodness of the heart of this owner previously or for whatever reason i don't really understand that, they can raise them sky high. this to me is a building that is indicative of the need for this legislation which is a great thing. if you look at the real estate listings you see at least a dozen throughout a city of

multi-unit buildings every month. thank you supervisors, and i hope you all pass it unanimously. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon commissioners. i'm alexandra goldman. the planning and policy manager at the tender loin development corporation and here in support of the copa legislation. we have been housing very low and extremely low income households since the 1980s. our tactic in combating displacement has been to remove units from the speculative housing market and that's exactly what copa intends to do. copa allows organizations like ours and other qualified organizations to have a leg up and to have a fighting chance against people who have a lot more liquid capital and may be less good intentions. and so we feel this would be a really amazing tool at our

disposal to help combat gentryfication and displacement which is a huge issue in our city now. i'm sure the other speakers have spoken clearly to that point. we would urge you to support this. one more thing to add which would be one thing we're particularly excited about is looking into the acquisition of single room occupancy hotels. you probably know that over the past couple years there has been a market rate set on these buildings that used to be seen as sort of safe places, even the market rate ones for low income people to live. we're really looking for opportunities to purchase these buildings and insure that low and extremely low income households can continue to live there and hopeful that legislation like copa would help us do this. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is maya and i'm a district 2 resident speaking on behalf of the council of community housing organizations

where i work and i've come to speak in support of the copa legislation. so the planning department and the mayor's office of housing have been having these town halls on anti-displacement and community stabilization strategies. well, we have a tangible piece of legislation before you that does just that and a lot of our community members have spoken in support of this so i think they made it loud and clear this is a much-needed anti-displacement strategy. and this is a huge moment, i think, to really combat this issue and i think it's going to impact a lot of our families here for generations. so that is why i urge you all

to unanimously support copa. thank you so much. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, this is tess from district 5 and i support this legislation and hope that you will, too. sometimes the economic theory that getss spouseed is the highest and best good and sometimes planning seems to think that, you know, that is a very valid theory and we need to talk about is that a sustainable theory. the people who live in san francisco and vote in san francisco deserve to be displaced. well, maybe the highest and best use actually supports getting rid of some of our residents and we may want to think about that a bit more. right now we -- the planning

department and the supervisors have been thinking about how do we deal with speculation and there have been a variety of attempts to think of ways to reduce the incentive to come in and buy a rent-controlled building. evict everybody one way or another and then sell it at three times the price that you bought it at, if not more. and in these days we're talking now that we can even tear down that rent-controlled building and build back even fewer units that would have some type of rent control factor. i urge you to pass this legislature -- support this legislation because it will allow some buildings to be bought at a market rate but then kept in a rent controlled environment. i personally think that people who own rent controlled buildings should be selling them to other people who want to have rent controlled buildings, to have buildings

with tenants in them as opposed to tic or something else. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. corey smith on behalf of the san francisco bay area housing action coalition. one of the things we always talk about when people kind of inquire about our organizational philosophy we like to say we are a yes and organization. we need to be expanding our supply of market rate housing and subsidized forwardable housing and supportive homeless housing. if we want to get more units on the market we need to find additional funding sources to figure out how to get more money and we should have programs like this be operating to figure out additional ways to solve this problem and i don't think anybody here will think this is going to solve the entire state's affordable crisis but just thinking about what is going to happen when that one family who is living in fear because they know their

building might be sold and they get that phone call saying by the way, actually, it's a local neighborhood nonprofit that will be buying this and not only are you going to be safe in your home but we'll be making improvements because our great nonprofit developers in the city are constantly increasing the quality of homes for our residents. so we really do lack affordability across the city. we certainly access affordable housing on the west side of the ste. it is exciting to be one of our west side supervisors leading this effort and so wholeheartedly give support today and looking forward to helping people live in their homes. >> any other public commenters on this item? >> okay. with that public comment is now closed. commissioner johnson. >> thank you to supervisor fure and to all of the community

organizations that came out today, ms. chan and all the work around this legislation which i think is a real effort to, as many of the commenters said, put more tools in the city's tool box to be able to get in front of the evictions and displacement destructive to our community and create new options for owners to have their units become or stay affordable. i loved the wording that housing stability should not just be for folks that can attain homeownership. it should be for everyone. i think what this legislation symbolizes is the city and nonprofits teaming up to create a third way for folks. one thing that i just -- when i think about how we make sure that our city actually gets the things that we need, i think

about of course legislating and requiring things and then also incentivizing and i think i want this to be a vehicle for owners not just to think of this as a requirement of noticing to the city and to nonprofits but really like the first thing that they think of before they think of putting a

>> we can understand in context how effective we can be. like commissioner johnson, i would like toen sen ta vice the property owner to step forward and say yes, i want to be a part

of this program. what can we do? the city can act as a guarantor that the contract won't fall through. one-third of the contracts in the city, where there's financing involved, fall through. i don't know what the rate is for non-profit. while the city buys it and it goes into the small size program. or another incentive would be, hey mr. landowner, in order for you to get this will we guarantee the contract will go through and we're going to throw another 5% on top of it. really, use the right market approach to the market i think would be great. this is an amazing idea. i just worry that, you know, landlords who are faced with -- here is a cash offer for $2 million. and here is a non-profit that will come in for 2 million that

will take five days to decide in 30 days. they're not going to be really happy. i would rather just get them to step forward and participate in the program rather than make it mandatory. i do support the concept, absolutely. >> mr. hillis. >> thank you. i echo those comments. i'm very supportive of this. i think we've been pushing small sites as a great tool to preserve the exiting housing stock. it also becomes affordable housing stock for decades. i mean, it would be owned by non profits, which i think is great. you can often do it per unit cost significantly cheaper than building new affordable housing, not to say we shouldn't be doing that also but building affordable housing, 900,000 plus a unit, where you could buy small sites for less in most cases than $500,000. i have the same concern that commissioner richards has.

you mentioned $40 million, we've got to get after funding source should be 10 times that every year. $40 million gets you 200 units. this isn't the solution. finding funding. this is a good first step if it's good to see progression of funding for small sites but we have to grow it almost exponentially to make a dent. thank you. >> commissioner moore. >> i'm inspired that supervisor fewer had the courage to come up with something that i think all of you are forge. i believe that housing is a basic right. this is a first step in the right direction.

>> i will just say that i am really excited about this. i think it is an important tool. we do have to find -- i'm sorry, did you want to speak? >> no, no. >> it's an important tool and i do think besides financing from the mayor's office of housing, there are other financial plots of money available. there's the accelerator fund. this is a really good organizing tool for the supervisor and others to get major employers to chip in and there's lots of opportunities and we needed this tool to make them potentially available. i still have some, you know, questions about some of the details and i did speak to mostly because, we know that when there's a regulatory infrastructure there's ways around and people will find ways

to do it. i will continue chiming in on that. i am very supportive of this legislation. i'm really glad that the community has come out in such strong support. >> did you want to say something else? >> i move to approve in concept of the proposed. >> i think ian would like to respond too. one of your comments on the incentives. >> yes. >> thank you so much. i want to respond. we 100% agree this should be an incentive and we see this, i mentioned this being a win-win for landlords and tenants. we've had, from the beginning, our goal has been to make this incentive-based. that's how we've been working to do. we recently met with the assessor's office and we're discussing a potential incentive in place in the legislation that would grant a partial exemption.

there's already reference to it currently. we're working out the mechanics of a partial exemption to the transfer tax. currently, buildings that are worth less than a million dollars pay between $250,000 and a million dollars buildings that are worth that amount pay $375 per $500 in transfer taxes. whatever the price of the building is, they're going to be paying $375 for every $500. so, when you go up to between a million dollars and $5 million, that jumping up to $1125 per ever $500. it's significantly increasing to what we've proposed is exempt that and go back to the amount of what it's worth for less than a million dollars and that would be a significant incentive. maybe, i don't know if it's 5%, i can't do that math on the top of my head but it does speak exactly your suggestion,

commissioner. thank you both. >> i think running that by the realtor's association to work with them on what types of incentives would be good would be good. i mean, yeah, that could be substantial. it's another way perfect. >> thank you. >> i move to approval -- >> i have a quick question. if the building is a t.i. c. if it's a three-room building. how does that work? >> that's a great question. i was actually one of the things i discussed with president melgar. yes, if it's a t.i.c and it's just a piece so it's just one person and say a three-unit building, that would not trigger this because that is just one person out of the four there. they're not selling the whole building. >> the entire building has to be for sale? >> yes. >> so this is again, the point of this is to allow and give these non profits the ability to get their foot in the door and be able to purchase it and remove it from the speculative

market. if that's one person in the t.i.c that is moving out of the building that's not an entire building that's being sold so that would not apply. >> i think your idea about the transfer tax is a great one. you almost wouldn't need this if you did that. that would -- people would want to take advantage of that. >> right. well that's the idea. we want to make this as adventageous for landlords to take advantage of this and again, to your point also, yes, we absolutely need much larger funding source and the supervisors very committed to this knowing that on the west side of the city, we don't have an abundance of large real estate, large lots to develop housing on. we need to be more creative in how we're preserving our existing affordable and making sure that we are creating funding streams so that we can acquire more of these priorities and keep people in their homes buzz it is much more cost effective to invest in that up-front cost than to try and rehouse people that are being displaced everyday.

thank you all so much for your time. >> you would be surprised how much land you have on the west side to develop. >> thank you. >> one other question. let's say i moved to the city 10 years ago and i got 10-year ago rent during the recession. my income started to growing and now i pay 25% of my income in rental housing for rent. if a non-profit were to buy this, would there be a chance i would be displaced and have to go out and pay $3500 a month for a one-bedroom versus the $2,000 i got 10 years ago? >> because you are now making -- >> i'm making too much to live in the building? >> this wouldn't displace people currently living in the building. it would make sure that new folks coming in would meet the income requirement. we definitely do not want to displace people. >> great.

>> thank you. >> i move to approve the legislation in concept and ask that supervisors' office continue to refine it to make it more effective and more voluntary. >> second. >> you are taking the resolution that's in here, right? >> yes. >> i'm adding the word voluntary. >> i'm not sure about the word voluntary. i don't think that's in the legislation. do you want to take two votes. >> ca.>> peru incentives. >> second. >> so we're adopting the resolution to recommend approval to the board of supervisors. >> with the caveat to pursue

incentives. on that motion to adopt a resolution recommend ago approval to the board of supervisors with a recommendation to pursue incentives -- hillis. >> aye. >[roll call]>> so moved. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. commissioners, we are on item 15 for case 2018-016562pca housing for state density bonus project planning code amendment, on january 31st, 2019 after hearing in closing public comment, you continued this matter to today by a vote of 5-0. commissioners you were both absent so in order to participate today, you must acknowledge that you have reviewed the previous hearing and materials. >> i have. >> i have. >> thank you. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. we are moving on to our next fun-filled item. we have a planning code amendment before you that would change the grant fathering provisions. one specific grandfathering provision of the inclusionary housing program, specifically this is the exemption for projects that were in the application before 2016. those projects are exempt from paying an addition fee of floor area or units through the state density bonus. the proposed ordinance is from supervisor peskin from last november. it's discrete. it would just remove this grant fathering provision so that the new addition alfie on the state density bonus floor area would apply to all projects. no what the matter when they came in with the document. just so we all recall, this stems from proposition c in

2016, san francisco voters passed that at resolution or that ordinance to establish temporary inclusionary housing requirements and direct that the controllers' office should recommend the maximum feasible amount and other changes. that process concluded with a action by the board of supervisors and summer of 2017 to adopt a vastly modified inclusionary housing program. that was the point at which this new fee was introduced into the planning code. the fee on the state density bonus square footage that was a recommendation of the tech and at that time, there was some exemption for the project that were grandfathered before 2016. i want to make really clear this grandfathering provision is totally separate in the code from the over all grant fathering provisions that govern your inclusionary status, in terms of the on site-off site fee. this is just a specific grandfathering for this one fee. it's also an inclusionary ordinance. the department analyzed what the effect of the ordinance would be if passed. we liked at the pipeline

currently. there are three dozen projects that are state density bonus projects in our pipeline right now. only six of those have come in before 2016 with their environmental applications. so right off the bat, we're talking about six projects. of those, two of them would not be impacted in a way. one used height and massing around. the other one is now switching to be a student housing project which is not subject town conclusion ary and so also that project would not be impacted. of the remaining four, all but one has been issued a site permit. this is critical because the planning code sets fourth that we have to apply the impact fees, assess the impact fees using the methodology. and notify d.b.i. of it at that time. there are only limited circumstances where we have the ability to go back and either apply a new fee, method' of the food. there are other very limited exceptions. that being the case, there's only one project in the pipeline

to which this ordinance would apply in terms of actually increasing its fee. so, based on all of that review, the department's recommendation is to disapprove the ordinance. this is primarily because it would retroactively remove a grandfathering provision put in place at the time of the requirement. and that this kind of retroactive legislation causes unnecessary uncertainty and confusion on all sides both in the department and without. it also requires staff time to implement and it runs the risk of slowing housing production over all and increasing the cost of housing in san francisco. in addition, with regards to this specific ordinance, as i mentioned, it would have the effect of one development project so it wouldn't be generally applicable in nature raises questions of fairness and the app lick ability of the law. like i said, the department estimates that there is one project that would pay around $1 million in fee. that is a significant amount of money in the context of one development budget. it is not a significant in the

context of the city's over all budget and it would not impede the city's ability to meet our affordable housing production goals. in addition to that, we reggae related issue to all of this which we are resolving by updating our directors bull fin number 6, the guidance how we implement the state density bonus program. an additional issue was raised from the supervisors office and we had a productive conversation conversation, how can be we sure there won't be more projects that are not state and city bonus projects in the pipeline that might, after the fact, apply to be state density bonus and with those projects get the benefit of the exemption. so, we wanted to make it crystal clear that won be the case. they have been updated, you will see it says revised february of 2019. at the bottom of page 2 in the procedural document, that last paragraph says additionally, you know, you should be advised they

have an additional fee requirement. if they come in before 2016. it goes on to say any projects that submits an individually state density application will be subject to the addition alfie requirement. so we hope that gives the required certainty and we believe that will ensure that the list of six projects, which is really only one project, will be contained only to that list we've identified at this time and wouldn't be able to grow. with that, that concludes the staff presentationing an presen. >> is there someone here from supervisor peskin's office. >> i don't believe so. >> with that, we will take public comment on this item. >> good afternoon, again, commissioners, courtesy smith. jacob actually took a lot of my talking points in terms of why

the actual legislation is problematic. and again we want to say for the record it's our understanding that any fees on state density bonus units are illegal under california state law. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, this is fernando with the county community housing organizations. i want to thank you and county staff for clarifying the questions. it's great to see that lack of clarity that brought us here has now been codified in the planning director's bulletin. it's important both for developers and for project advocates and for community advocates to be able to have that certainty that is now there in your director's bulletin. thank you, very much. >> thank you. any other public comment on this item? with that, commissioner hillis. >> so, thank you for the clarification on this and thank you for updating the director's

bulletin. it seems like that got off the policy question that was raised when we had this issue before us and supervisor peskin's office was here. to me that is satisfactory. i would take the staff's recommendation to disapprove this knowing that the director bulletin language is in place. >> is that a motion. >> yep. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. seeing nothing further there's a motion that has been seconds to days prove thdisapprove the plae amendment, on that motion -- [roll call] >> so moved, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. that puts us on 16 for this is an appeal of a mitigate negative

declaration.

hearts >> good afternoon. joining me today are debra da wire, principle planning. the item before you today is an appeal of a mitigate negative declaration for 5 third street. the decision before the commission is whether to adopt the motion to up hold the department's decision to repair a mitigate negative declaration which staff recommends to overturn that decision and require the preptation of an environmental impact report due to potential significant environmental effects of the project. this hearing is continued from an easterly year appeal hearing on november 15th, as a department received comments from the state historic preservation officers or shipo

from the appellant friends of the building. following the hearing, the project sponsor advised the project, as i will describe later, and they determined the project mets the secretary of inter your standards for rehabilitation. since the department updated appeal response provided in the packet last week, both of the appellants submitted supplemental letters or emails. i will address the issues raised in those materials in my presentation today. they don change the department responses or recommendations. in this presentation, i'll give a brief overview of the project and its impacts. the concerns raised by the two appellants, including those from this week, the departments response to those concerns and the next department recommendations for the hearing

today. 14,000 project is located on the is the east corner of market and third street in the financial district. the project site is occupied by the building. and is 13-storey and 189 feet tall with a bar nightclub within the basement level, ground floor retail uses and commercial office space on floors 2-13. it consists of two separate structures and considered a historic resources for the purpose of california environment actor ceqa. it's under article 11 of the planning code. one of the appellants' concerns focuses on the hearst garage. it's not part of the project. the project would reconfigure the existing office space to provide a mixed-use hotel with 170 hotel rooms, 11,000 square

feet of retail, restaurant, bar and event space and 6,000 square feet of office space. in the basement, new structural walls would be added as part of the seismic retro fit that would reconfigure the tenant space. including ground level retail, restaurant, bar and hotel lobby space. there would be a mix of commercial office space, hotel rooms, and events space on levels two and three and hotel rooms on floors 4-12. in addition, level 4 would have an outdoor terrance event space and level 13 would be used as an indoor and outdoor event space with a kitchen and rooftop bar and patio. the sponsor would request the sfmta implement a 60-foot long passenger loading zone. valet service would be provided on the stevenson street front age. in response to comments in november, the project sponsor made changes to the project which included relocating the lobby doors to the existing

adjacent to the elevator banks further from the market street entrance. adjusting position of the doors from the fourth floor upwards to retain existing marble wall cladding. and reducing the height of the proposed elevator machine room. following these revisions, they determined the project meets the secretary of interior standards. the preliminary mnd was released with a public comment per idea from august 23rd to september 20, 2018. they received two appeal letters. one on behalf of the friends of hearst building. the original hearing on novembeo allow the department and sponsor to consider the shipo comments. since that time, the project sponsor modified the project. and the department re-evaluated the describe revisions. the revised pmnd reflects the modified project. the mnd included mitigation

measures to reduce significant impacts to archeological resources, tribal cultural resources, noise and construction and operational air qualitquality emissions. the appellant's concerns relate to historic architect you'll resources and valet parking. the planning department considered the concerns raised and concludes the mitigate negative declaration for the project was appropriately issued. the department responses are provided in exhibit a of the draft motion. in addition, the presentation today will address the sub la mental materials on tuesday and by mrs. brant, holly yesterday. they have not provided substantial evidence to support the project would have namely,

the flat roof and it may be a significant impact under ceqa. the letter sent yesterday implies the structure report was received and it explained why the letter was not submitted soon. planning staff notified the appellant of updated materials prepared on january 25th and heard no request for that report for additional materials at which time materials were sent as soon as they were available. the project was evaluate today determine if it would cause change in the significance of a historic resource. if it met for the standards of rehabilitation. the standards for rehabilitation allow for limited changes to historic buildings in order to accommodate new uses.

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-- and the appellants' assertion is noted but contradicted by the evidence and evaluation. the project was reviewed by san francisco heritage, a presentation non-profit. san francisco heritage feels that the projects adaptive reuse is appropriate and sympathetic to the long-term use of the building. there's no evidence that the project would not comply for the standards of rehabilitation and that the project would have an impact on historic resource.

other appellant concerns include hazardous impacts and parking, noise, solution and site specific and cumulative impacts. these concerns have been addressed in the m.m.d. and the appeal responses. and concerns were raised with the non-profit businesses and change of use from retail valet parking and the inclusion of public art or green wall on the project. these concerns are not issues as discussed in the apartment repeal response. should the pmbd be upheld today these are the next steps. there will be a hearing before the commission on the major permits to alter, which is scheduled for march 20th. following that hearing if approved the project will be back before the commission on march 21st for consideration of its entitlements. after these hearings, the project would go before the board of supervisors for adoption of an amendment to planning code section 1188g with terrace infill. and by upholding what the staff

recommends the planning commission would not restrict its ability to consider whether uses or its design are appropriate for the neighborho neighborhood. in conclusion for the reasons stated in our appeal response at this hearing the department continues to find that the m.m.d. issued complies with the requirements of ceqa and the ceqa guidelines and chapter 31 of the administrative code and as the review determination. and they analyze all environmental impacts associated with the proposed project, both that are project specific and a cumulative level. mitigation measures to reduce impacts to less than significant have been identified. the planning department has considered the entire record, including all materials provided by th the appellants and public comments on the ppmd, and based on substantial evidence in the record the planning department has determined the project would have no significant effect on the environment. the planning department respectfully recommends that the planning commission adopt a

motion to uphold the m.m.d. this concludes the department's presentation and we're available to answer questions. thank you. >> thank you. so this is an appeal. do we now hear from the appellant? so i think that we have two different appellants so we'll have five minutes for each of you. come on up, please. >> hello, how many minutes? >> five. >> five? >> my name is asim selma and i'm known as sal selma. and i have been at san francisco for over 58 years and i have owned or governed businesses in san francco