projects when there might be 50 percent rations, but that's a choice based on policy. change the policy, and then we are not looking at that excessive rationing. we are happy to answer any questions. thank you very much. >> thank you. do we have more presentations? that's it. okay. we will now take public comment on this item. i have two speaker cards. ilene boken and fran this sew -- francisco decosta. anyone else who wants to speak on this item, come on up now. >> ilene, coalition for san francisco neighborhoods, here on my own behalf. last year the sfpuc assistant

general manager for water gave a presentation of the bay area think tank. the title of the presentation was bay delta and the future of regional water supplies, a copy of the powerpoint has been presented or submitted to the commission. on the overhead is the slide of that presentation. the presentation began with the statement that the regional water issues are not a supply issue but a, quote, unquote, plumbing issue. and the plumbing issue could be resolved through a number of agreements between regional water districts and with infrastructure projects. on the overhead is a summary of the capital projects which would revolve the plumbing issue. however, it was stated the sfpuc, 20 percent of these projects came to fruition would be fortunate. it was stated the projects that came to fruition will take ten to 30 years to complete. the first -- the overhead, the first seven projects listed

would cost $2 billion. so it seems to be a very different narrative between a supply and a plumbing approach. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm the director of environmental justice advocacy. but i also attend most of the meetings, the san francisco public utilityies commission and my main interest is the rivers that feed into this reservoir to the river. and i always ask a question to the san francisco public utilities commission that who will speak on behalf of the

salmon. now, most people who are spiritually bankrupt -- i'm not here to judge -- they have no include about the salmon and how revered the salmon are to the indigenous people. now, the experts here, they'll give you whatever type of presentation they want. but common sense. i want to speak to common sense. first of all, i want to say that the river needs more water. and we need to figure it out, we in san francisco and you commissioners and the san francisco public utilities

commission that was established in 1996 and the entire prize department. we have to support the indigenous people. and if we support the indigenous people, we will be blessed. and if we do not support the indigenous people, then we'll figure that out. now, on building buildings, none of you commissioners ask a very important question. why is it that in 2019, we flush our toilets with clean drinking water? and what type of solution do you have for that? so you bring the water all the way from hetch and talk about the reservoirs, talk about this or talk about that, and you flush the toilets with clean drinking water. you figure that out. because you are smart enough.

we are 1,100 miles of clean drinking water that are 90 years old. don't require a rocket scientist to tell you that old pipes leak. we need an empirical data in realtime how much water leeches into the ground, clean drinking water, not only from these pipes but bigger pipes. so as i said, we go before -- i go before the san francisco public utilities commission to represent the people and the native americans. and from time to time i've come here to give my little presentation. thank you. you may have given me about twenty-seconds. thank you for the twenty-seconds. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. tim on my own behalf.

years ago i had the good fortune to be involved with the lake merced task force, and a lot of the issues you saw in your presentation were taken on by a large group of community organizations. and i first want to express deep admiration for the job steve richie does for the city and facing this important challenge. but there was something that came up the gentleman from the river trust brought up that has been nagging at me over the years, and that's the fact that the sfpuc is behind almost all other water agencies in producing recycled water. daly city has been producing secondary water for a decade. we can use it to irrigate golf courses instead of flushing it out to the sea. and in san francisco we have put in purple pipe zones, and developers have been doing that for years with the idea that eventually, instead of using hetch water to flush toilets, we

would have a supply to go to this new plumbing system we required in certain zones of the city for many years but with no supply. i guess the frustration i feel a little bit is i would love to see more advocacy from the fromy in conjunction, this commission and the sfpuc to start accelerating production of treated water, of recycled water. it's being done in communities across california. and there's no reason we shouldn't have it here. but otherwise i think this is a wonderful presentation. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. okay. public comment is closed. okay. commissioner moore. >> i want to express my concern over the statements made by president trump a few days ago regarding directing the face of

any water conversation and particularly the measures we are trying to uphold in california. >> commissioner fung. >> question for staff. do these projections include areas under discussion such as the hub? we just don't increase density substantially? >> yes, planning department, the demand projections used for the urban water management plan include all developments in the pipeline and all planned development. so the simple answer to your question is yes. >> perhaps this question is more for mr. richard, but do we have any idea what capacity -- whether it's a measure to capacity or usage, but gray

water or black water in the city? >> chief of san francisco puc. actually, contrary to some of the comments, we are in the middle of construction on the west side to deliver recycled water to golden gate park, the golf course and parts of the presidio. that is the largest area of nonpotable water usage that exists. san francisco, again, we showed the low per capita usage, that's because there's very little areas to irrigate, which is what lots of other communities have developed recycled water for. so the amount of water that can be recycled in san francisco is quite limited. we've studied that many times. the one avenue for which we could maximize recycled water is one of those projects that we looked at there, which is using

purified water in san francisco, in effect delivering it directly for drinking water purposes, something that is not currently allowed under state regulations, but we are going to be looking at that as potentially part of our future. i think all of california is going to be looking at as part of our potential future. we are often chastised for not recycling water like the orange county water district, which sits over a vast groundwater basin, so they can percolate their treated water into that. we have in effect what i call a boutique groundwater basin on the west side of san francisco. you can't under regulations percolate recycled water into abasen and have it reside there long enough to have it extracted under current regulations. i could get you the total numbers we've developed but for nonpotable uses, it's quite limited. the most that's going to happen now is what's required under the nonpotable ordinance, requiring new developments under 250,000 square feet to recycle water for

their nonpotable uses on their site. so that's covering a lot of the purple pipe area that was referenced by tim colin. >> so perhaps further expansion of my question is the west side facility represents public infrastructure, private infrastructure, any idea of how many -- whatever metric you want to use for that as an example, sales force tower has black water. >> correct. >> how much cumulatively, those type of facilities have been developed in san francisco? >> i don't have the number off the top of my head. i can get that number to you and communicate it to the planning commission. again, the number, the total number that can go into those kinds of developments for

nonpotable uses is actually fairly limited in terms of millions the billions per day is probably -- close to five million the billions per day off total demand of 60 million the billions per day by san francisco currently. >> thank you >> commissioner diamond. >> i have a question for staff. in the ceqa analysis that you are doing, what are you assuming about the use of recycled water? >> so in our ceqa analysis, again, at least for the larger projects, we rely on the water supply assessments that sfpuc conducts for the projects. those assessments do divide out by potable and nonpotable demand as well as the on-site nonpotable supply for projects, all those larger projects are subject to the city's nonpotable ordinance. so we do account for nonpotable use in that analysis.

>> that's consistent with the amount of supply projected by the puc? >> it is. so the supply numbers that we are looking at in urban water management plan are focused on the potable supply. and so we net out the potable versus nonpotable in comparing them with the projected demand. >> okay. so forgive me, i have many questions. so first let me start off by saying mr. richie, i am a big, big fan of the puc. and you in particular. thank you so much for everything that you do for our city. and you do it very well. so thank you. from the get-go. so, you know, my first set of questions is about our business plan for the puc and how the selling of two-thirds of our water to municipalities around

us, you know, is linked to our rates. and you know, so i am wondering specifically as a planning commission and now being part of regional efforts around tying development to transportation, it had never occurred to me about tying development to water. but in fact, we do supply their water. i'm wondering, you know, how much of that sale affects our rates or if it doesn't. and also whether our contract obligations to supply them water also come with obligations on their part to conserve water or to enact any of those measures and also their development. >> okay. first, relative to rates, the wholesale customers actually pay for -- they buy about two-thirds of the water, and they pay about

two-thirds of the cost of the water supply facilities that bring that water into and through the bay area. san francisco customers pay about a third of that cost. then san francisco customers pay for their own plumbing in the city, in effect. >> they pay their own way, essentially. >> yeah. and then as far as the contractually obligation, it outlives the contract that was the result of a settlement agreement between san francisco and the wholesale customers through litigation that had been brought back in the '70s and that's 184 million-gallon per day assurance. there is no contract yule obligation that no contract -- t obligation they use in terms of efficiency. but they are doing quite a good job in terms of water use

efficiency. i would say during the last drought if you look at the demand patterns, it was very clear that the decrease in demand during that last drought period was through the elimination of outdoor irrigation substantially in our wholesale customer area. if you check the graph you can see a flatline during the summer months. that has started to bounce back. we just saw data from our wholesale customers that in the last ten years, their per capita water usage has gone from about the mid-80-gallon per day per person down to the mid-60-gallon per day per person. they're still not as efficient as san francisco, because there is still more outdoor use. but they have really stepped up as far as efficiency is concerned. >> so they regulate themselves -- >> yes. >> -- because of cost, or because they are environmentally conscious, not necessarily because we have any power to set

how they regulate? >> correct. each one is their own entity. they have their own planning commission, development policies. so they have their own authorities. that's one of our agreements is we don't dictate what they can do. they don't dictate what we can do. >> okay. so as to the issue of junior water rights, to i think it was mr. drekm eier who talked about being subordinate to modesto. >> those are the modesto irrigation district. so they are primarily providing agricultural water. >> so even though we invested so heavily in san pedro, that doesn't give us any right towards requesting conservation

measures for those counties either, right? because they are junior, right? >> that's correct. >> it's only the state that can do that? >> that's correct. >> the next question is for our staff, for planning staff, just so i understand what you are saying, this issue has come up in relation to a couple projects that we had approved in the central soma plan. so as i understood what you said in terms of our ceqa analysis, i didn't quite understand -- i understood what you said about housing units. i didn't understand understand how it relates to office space. >> so the demand projections account for both if she for all proposed plan -- for both -- for all proposed plan uses, it's a much less important factor. so in the projections i was

showing we are focusing primarily on growth in population in housing, because there's a much larger impact on water demand. >> how do we know that? >> we know that based on sfpuc data. as you can imagine, a typical office worker isn't doing their laundry or washing their dishes when they are at work. but the actual numbers that we have from sfpuc's data show that office use is substantially lower than residential use for san francisco. >> so we take it into account? >> yes, all the land uses proposed are accounted for in the assessments. >> in retail too? >> yes, in retail uses as well. >> restaurants and hotels? >> correct. >> okay.

thank you. >> we can move onto item 13 for 148 geary street. this is a conditional use authorization. please note on december 5, after hearing and closing public comment, you continued this matter to today's date by a vote of 5-0. commissioner johnson, you were absent so you need to acknowledge you have reviewedded the previous hearing and materials. >> i have. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, president melgar and commissioners. planning department staff. the item before you is a conditional use authorization for 148 geary street. the item was continued from the december 5 hearing after supervisors request. it proposed a change in use of retail to office on the third and fourth floors comprising 5500 square feet. proposed to remain is 5500

square feet of retail on the first and second floors as well as basement level storage. the project includes interior improvements, door front changes and street access to third and fourth floor office use. the department recommends approval with conditions for the following reasons. the project proposes converting less than 50 percent gross square feet of building to office use, does not displace any existing tenant and rehabilitative buildings. the remaining retail use will maintain an active storefront presence that is visible along geary street that will support active pedestrian-oriented commercial uses in a commercial neighborhood. the project is consistent with the objectives and policies of the general plan, the department also finds the project to be necessary, desirable and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. this concludes my presentation. i'm available for questions. >> thank you.

project sponsor? >> thank you. representing the project sponsor. i want to start by emphasizing something that i've said and felt all along, which is that approximately one year ago when the office legislation proposed by supervisor peskin was pending, many of us worked closely with him and his office and genuinely appreciated all the work he did to enact the new controls. many property owners felt similarly good about the outcome, which resulted in revised controls that allow flexibility of the third floor subject to your evaluation of five different factors or criteria. now that we have the legislation, all collective tasks is to evaluate ecu against the factors per the legislation. there is no other policy that we are aware of that should apply, given that we have legislation that is less than a year old. i think the three most important factors for the legislation on the uses are as whether it would

propose permanent physical changes that would preclude future conversion back to retail, we are not asked to predict the likelihood of future likelihood but to confirm we are not physically precluding it. and second, what are the proposed office would support or compliment lower level retail uses and third, whether there's something physical about the building that makes retail uses unfeasible. so let me start with some of the physical constraints. we are requesting conversion of third and fourth floors, each floor plays 2700 in size. the building has a narrow, approximately 23-foot frontage on geary and a secondary facade. in reality, it's difficult to find a retailer who is interested in taking three or four floors together. the other option is to lease the third floor to stand alone retail but to make that a

reality you need excellent access and visibility for the third floor uses. in this case, no changes are proposed to the geary facade. we want to keep that as 100 percent retail, and we need all 23 feet of frontage for the first and second floor uses. if you show on the on overhead, i can quickly show that's the proposed facade. you can see in orange, there's approximately five foot wide office entrance that would be added and which could easily be converted into retail facade or retail entrance if the third and fourth ever converted back to retail. from our perspective, having the upper floors occupied instead of being vacant will increase foot traffic, increase security, and create new patrons to nearby retail uses so the impact on retail overall is positive.

the building is not suitable for retail for several reasons and we can go into detail for those if you would like us to come back. thank you. >> thank you. >> i have a couple speaker cards. alexis bronson. anybody else can line up. but whoever is ready, come on up. >> this is the second hearing, so you are limited to one minute. >> good day. my name is alexis. i'm the ceo of have a heart and a tenant to the property adjacent to 146 geary. over the past week, i've met with the project applicant, and we have come to an agreement over the mutual support of each other's project. as such, i'm before you today asking that you approve the

conditional use application. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm ryan. i represent uocw local five. we were partners with have a heart. they've been great partners in organized labor and a real stalwart of legitimizing the industry. so we also support the measure. >> thank you. anyone else want to publicly comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. i'm going to start off with repeating my comments last week. i'm always going to be in favor of keeping that first and second floor retail. i don't see a retail tenant

renting that third floor. i just don't. and there's a lot of buildings in union square with a lot of vacancies still, six by six, not one retail tenant, not one, fifth and market. so i'm in support of this project today. >> commissioner moore >> i would like to take the opposite stand. it's like in rome, one special place where retail still is successful. and i think it's a balance of the building expression as a whole where i believe that four, five are indeed two floors that can support office. however, when it comes to the overall expression of the street, because it is so small, i would like to see at least 50 percent or more of the building to retain its retail expression, including the type of feel you get from when you

know that there are retails operating on multiple floors. again, these are significantly different opinions on the subject matter, but i believe that that particular street requires our very special care. there are plenty of other opportunities where we can exercise judgment to add more retail on the third floor. in this particular case, i would like to put a stop and say no. >> commissioner koppel. >> i was thinking about this in general, and it's funny to see what seems like the hammer instead of the carrot being used. it's tough for me to visualize, we are writing a vacancy tax but then we are not allowing them to rent out their spaces. i have a hard time for that. >> i'll make a motion to approve the project. >> second. >> commissioners, there's a

motion that have been seconded to approve this project with conditions. on that motion -- [roll call vote] so moved. that motion passes 5-1 with commissioner moore voting against. that will place us on items 14a and b, for cases 2016-105789 at 2300 harrison street. you will be considering a large project authorization and office development authorization. on july 18, 2019, after hearing and closing public comment, you continued this matter to august 22 by a vote of 6-1. and on august 22, after hearing and closing public comment, you continued the matter to october 10, 2019 by a vote of 7-0. without hearing on october 10, you continued the matter to

november 14 where it was continued again. commissioner diamond, you were not present or not seated quite yet in july of this year. so in order to participate you need to acknowledge that you have reviewed the previous hearing and materials. >> i did. >> thank you. >> i'm sorry, before you get started, can i ask a question about the agenda? we have agendized as a and b. with b being the office allocation and a being the large project. if there's a reason why it needs to be in that order? >> well, we typically add both items onto an agenda when they have two dual entitlements because the appeal body might be different based on the type of entitlement >> right. my question is the order. >> no, there's no particular order. >> okay. thank you. >> to the chair, this is the third time we are hearing this matter but it's been a while. i don't know how much time you want to provide the sponsor or

members of the public. >> i would say -- >> three and one? okay. very good. >> good afternoon. department staff. i'm here on behalf of someone who is out sick today. on august 22 the planning commission continued the authorization and also development authorization for 2300 harrison street so public hearing on november 14. with the direction to work through residential unit design, look at potential to increase the number of residential units and to address traffic concerns. the public hearing on november 14 was canceled and the project was continued to public hearing today on december 12. the project includes the demolition of an existing surface parking lot and the construction of a six-story overbasement garage, 75-foot tall, 7,000 square foot vertical and horizontal addition to an existing three story, 6800 square foot office building. the addition will result in a mixed use building with 24

dwelling units, 27,000 square feet of additional office space, 2400 square feet of retail, approximately 1,000 square feet of arts activity and retail and 31 class 1 bicycle parking spaces as well as a total of 41 off street parking spaces. the project would result in 95,000 square feet of office use on the project site. the dwelling unit mix would include 14-one bedroom units and ten two-bedroom units. under the state density bonus law, the project is requesting three concessions and incentives for rear yard, ground floor height and active use. under the law, the project is requesting three waivers from the development standards for one, height, two, narrow street height limit and three, mass reduction. since the last public hearing,

the project sponsor estimated revised plans providing additional information, basically including refinement of the project, additional detail on the floor plan and increase from three bmr units to six, resulting in three more bmr units than what is required. no changes were made to the total building area, square footage, number of units, dwelling unit mix or office square footage. no additional waivers, incentives and concessions have been requested. at the previous hearing, concerns were expressed in regards to the proposed location of the parking garage entrance on street versus harrison, potential impacts to accessibility and loading zones and shadow impacts on adjacent properties which staff would like to address. harrison street is located within a vision zero high injury network. the project site is located on existing bicycle transit network. as such, the planning code

prohibits new curb cuts on harrison street where an alternate frontage is available. no garage entrance could be located on harrison street. the existing loading zone will remain. however, per the fire department, all on street parking will be eliminated on both sides and the north side is allowed and on the north side of the street in order to allow fire truck access which will improve access for any potential loading or delivery vehicles. shadow impacts are only considered on recreation parks properties and public open spaces. no shadow impacts were identified as part of the planning review. the sponsor independently looked at shadow that the project would cast on the nearby buildings. the project will not cast any shadow on the treat merchants buildings any time after 9 a.m. the project sponsor included those findings in their brief included in the most recent pact and is available to go over if the commission desires.

i'm available to answer questions. the project sponsor has prepared a short presentation. >> thank you. we will hear from the project sponsor. >> if we could have the overhead, please. so after our last hearing, we focused our attention on two items, one, maximizing our housing and affordable housing contribution and second, the relationship between housing and office components. i'm going to start with office and try to put that up a little bit in perspective by comparing our project to today's stand alone 27,000 square foot office project. per the study used in the jobs housing linkage fee legislation, housing demand is eight units per thousand square feet of office. for 27,000 square feet, that translates to 21.84 units. a typical office only project of

this size would be deemed to have mitigated all of its housing impact by payment of the jobs housing fee which in this case is approximately 1.36 million. 2300 harrison will pay the jobs housing fee, but because this is a mixed use project, it will also create 24 units of housing with six bmr units on-site. and it will pay a 20 percent bmr fee on the six bonus units. 24 units is well in excess of the demand. and thus this project that you see today doubles its housing contribution by paying both the jobs housing linkage fee and by creating housing. the project also doubles its bmr requirement. three are required, we are proposing six on-site bmr rental units. three will be at 50 percent ami and the other at 80 percent ami. that is altogether 25 percent on-site affordability, when 16 percent is required.

in addition to the housing and affordable housing contributions, the project is also paying other impact fees, there's a chart on the screen right now that shows that the total of all impact fees is about almost $3.6 million. on other community benefits, the ground floor commercial spaces will still be offered at below market rates. that applies to the two community serving spaces, ideally for a local arts organization and corner retail space. both will be built. we will include two murals and will continue to be willing to have carnivals to use the surface parking spaces near 19th. the overall, this commission approved many office projects, office only projects that contribute to housing solely by paying the jobs housing linkage fee. this commission also approved many housing projects that pay the bmr fee or perhaps the units

on-site, perhaps offering one additional unit. this project is doubling those requirements and contributions. we hope that you approve the project today and allow a surface parking lot to be placed into better use that can contribute to the city and the neighborhood. i'm joined here today by the entire team, so we are happy to answer any questions. thank you very much. >> thank you. okay. we will now take public comment on this item. do we have speaker cards? only one. leonard. i think lots of folks are here from the project. if you can line up to my left, i would appreciate it. okay. don't be shy. come on up. >> hello, president melgar,

fellow commission members. my name is leonard. i'm a field rep of the local 22. i represent 40,000 carpenters. i'm here to ask for your support for the 2300 harrison project. we are committed to using union general contractor that will provide individuals with an opportunity to earn a good wage and provide health and retirement benefits to our members. this project will also offer training and educational opportunities for those entering into carpentry trades through apprenticeship. this includes women, minorities, veterans. this brings much-needed housing and community benefits to the area. and i would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. i urge you to pass this project today. thank you. >> thank you, sir. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. my name is carlos. i'm a mission resident and advocate for the cultural action network. today i'm asking the board to deny the office allocation portion of this project which is item 14b. there's significant concern about the appropriateness of the office allocation in this part of the mission. this part of the mission is zoned umu, created by the commission for the purpose of creating a buffer zone in order to safeguard the unique characteristics of different neighborhoods. office is not a unique characteristic to this side of the mission. as commissioner koppel stated during his hearing on august 22, both opinions were such because of the parts of town we are talking about. on streets like harrison, i think they are appropriate for office but not in the financial district. i have a problem seeing office in this neighborhood which has been pdr. it's important that this commission send a message that while housing is appropriate, office is not. to approve this current

development, what precedent would it set for other umu developers in the mission district? thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. tim on behalf of the housing action coalition. this has been a really strange project that a project this small and modest is taking this much time to get through. it's hard to explain. i'm wondering if the commission is overthinking it. if this project is turned down or conditions are put on it to make it infeasible or it's dragged out for months in the future, what will happen if the project fails is the city will keep legal con nonconforming office use and a surface parking lot for decades to come. the building is in good shape. if you approve it, you keep some of the legal con forming use but you get a lot of other benefits, especially including housing, especially at double the rate of the b.m.r.s they are required to

provide. it's inconceiveable to me that somehow not getting this project approved quickly is somehow going to benefit the city, and in particular, improve the mission neighborhood. this project is way overdue to get passed and deserves to be passed immediately. thank you. >> next speaker, please. thank you, mr. colin. >> hello. i'm chris lawrence representing the pdr spaces. not everyone could make it today. after dealing with the project sponsor for a year we have had no concessions made. they pushed together the project as is from day one. i don't believe it's ready. they have a lot of p.d.r. spaces that are going to be taken away in san francisco. it's time for them to talk to us and think about what's going to happen to these spaces. there are four spaces all along treat that are very concerned. thank you. >> thank you.

next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thank you for having me. i'm a mission district native and also director of carnival san francisco. and just thinking about this project is appalling for me. the amount of housing units, not even close to the number of high-income enearners that the -- earners the office would bring, a neighborhood that's been impacted by gentrification for so many years. the fact that the number of affordable housing is so low is concerning for me. we understand the characteristic of this neighborhood is for mainly local businesses and to bring an office that really belongs in market street to the mission to this area would highly impact not only the residents but the businesses and the character of this neighborhood as well. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm with our mission no eviction. the commission has approved many office projects, that is true, but not in the heart of one of the communities that has been so devastated by gentrification, displacement. and we know that office development is a driver of our housing issues in this city has a great office to housing imbalance. why would we put such a project in the heart of this community? if the density bonus is to be used, it should be used for housing, and this should be a housing project. where is the performer that says it can't be a housing project? we don't accept this when other developers are building in this area, building housing projects, and this city needs housing. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> can i get the overhead, please? good afternoon, commissions, i'm with our mission no eviction. the project is always perceived as even more harmful to the community than it was first proposed. we now fully see the existential impacts it will have on the adjacent businesses as well as other iconic cultural events. each entity's existence could be in jeopardy. for what? an oversized housing project with housing as an afterthought. we also just recently found out about the loading zone or the fire engine loading zone which is going to clear out the whole treat street. and we don't see that as an improvement. we see that as an enforcement issue.

further putting pressure on the deliveries for these businesses. we found out the on-site parking is for the office workers not the residents, creating an employment package for the workers. we lost la cocina during this period. we know the project will make $600,000 in rent. we need to deny this office allocation. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is ben carol. i'm with red stone labor temple tenants association at 60th and caps in the neighborhood. i just want to say that there are several long-standing blue collar businesses adjacent to this project. and the owners of these businesses have expressed concerns that this project is going to place undue hardship on their businesses. the developer has been unwilling to take steps to ensure the

protection of the businesses, which is a requirement of the mission area plan, as commissioners, you have the discretion to deny this project based on its harmful impacts to these blue collar spaces. i urge you to do so for the sake of the neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. peter with the mission economic development agency. quickly, i wanted to highlight a few of what we think of as the key points here. this is a previously all-industrial building that was converted to now mostly tech that now wants to expand to be a larger tech hub in what is our former northeast mission industrial zone, which still provides a lot of our blue collar jobs. it's also worrisome that the blue collar businesses neighboring have gotten no assistance, no concessions towards their concern in all this time.

and the point to the 2018 paper that said income is one of the principle drivers of our housing cost and we expect to see commercial and residential gentrification impacts from this project. we did propose that it might make sense to have office if there's a commitment to the medical, dental that was said no to, so we would ask you to deny the office portion of this project. thank you. >> any other public comment on this item? public comment is closed. okay. i'm going to start it off. so i will not be supporting the office allocation for this

project. and i will be supporting the housing. i don't know how that is going to work out. but i went back -- you know, we have all sorts of conversations that we've been having around the eastern neighborhoods plan, which i was really involved in, because i worked for the mayor's office of housing at the time. and i went back, and what's on our own website for u.m.u. in the eastern neighborhoods, i will point to my fellow commissioners, it says, i'm just going to read what it says. so areas currently zoned industrial will generally be rezoned to one of the following designations, pdr or umu. p.d.r. it says everything is permitted today would continue to be permitted except new residential development which would be prohibited and retail storefronts and offices would be limited in size.

and the u.m.u., these zones are designed to promote a mix of different activities. the rules applying to these zones are generally the same as p.d.r., however new residential development would also be permitted. in both zones all existing offices, retail stores and residents which received a permit at the time they were built would be considered legal and would be allowed to remain. for example if a tenant of an office space moved out, a similar office space would be moving in. so that's what happened with this particular office. they were grandfathered in. so now they are asking for an expansion of a use that was already grandfathered in with housing, which is permitted, and i would say desirable. in the ten years since we implemented the eastern neighborhoods, there has been a lot of discussion about the

residential portion of what we are building in u.m.u.s. i remember an editorial in 2016 that was written in pot potrerot says eastern neighborhood has failed us. they are making the point that because we said it's okay to have that residential u.m.u., what we are getting is market-rate housing, with the minimum requirement, but that is helping drive gentrification and displacement in neighborhoods. now, this project is, as was pointed out, giving us more affordable housing than is required. and the question for me is does that mitigate this new office application? so in my mind, it doesn't. so if i were comparing this to

100 percent residential project, including market-rate residential, it might be a different calculation for me. but i haven't seen the numbers on that. i don't know why that is infeasible, when i know nick is building a building a block away. so i'm not ready to approve the office alcation. and it is because i think that when we resound the eastern neighborhoods, the u.m.u. designation was supposed to be a buffer to protect the p.d.r., the many spaces that we have from residential and even holding to that, we are not doing so well. and here we have four p.d.r. businesses on this street who are asking us for relief, but they are worried they are going to be able to survive. and we are just saying, yeah, go ahead, expand this office that you were never supposed to have

in the first place but we grandfathered you in. and so it doesn't sit well with me. and i won't be supporting the office allocation for this. understanding that that's what you've used to pencil out the building. but i hope that maybe we get a housing project instead. okay. >> commissioner moore. >> thank you for your sensitive analysis and recapping the concerns which we had discussed on quite a few occasions prior to today. i think you are resonating after repeatedly examining, what we have all touched on before. i would agree with you. my position has not changed on this either. the tech office portion of the project is a big question as it remains a definition of office that i think runs counter to what we support here. and again, i would agree with mr. papadopolus that this would

be a different kind of office, which we desperately need and nobody ever talks about it, then i would support this project, but it isn't, so for that reason, i will not support the office allocation in this particular case either. >> commissioner diamond. >> could staff address the point that was raised by the two commissioners who just spoke? what is permitted, what is not permitted? i need to understand your recommendation. because your recommendation was to approve with conditions. so i would like to understand why two commissioners are feeling like it's really not implementing the code. >> yeah. so in this case, the u.m.u. has funny controls when it comes to office. so the way that office is relegated in this particular zoning district is by floor level, as based on building

height. so if a building is between two and four tories, a project is allowed to have one floor of office basically throughout the districts. and that control, from what i understand, was crafted when they drafted the zoning and the eastern neighborhoods plan to purposefully limit buffets and allow for residential, since most of the u.m.u. parcels were formerly m1 and m2. so when they converted over to have the potential for housing and other things, they corrected the range of uses that could be allowed to try and maximize the amount of the kind of mixed use. >> but the two floors of office that are being proposed? >> so in this case because of the state density bonus, the project is actually allowed to exceed the height limit and build up to five tories. and so between five and seven stories, a project is allowed to

have up to two floors of office. so in this case, the addition of the residential units, because we look at it as the building itself since it's one building, it's allowed to have up to two floors of office rather than the one which would be another. >> does the code say anything about the type of office? >> no, it does not. we don't limit, in this zoning district, we don't limit the kind of office that could be placed there. >> thank you. the u.m.u. zoning says the project with five to seven floors you are allowed to have two floors of office. our project is six floors. the sixth floor is the bonus floor but even without the bonus program we would have a five-story building and by u.m.u. zoning we would be allowed to have two floors of office. so the bonus does not really impact the two floors of office.

jus wanted to clarify that. >> thank you. commissioner johnson. >> i just want to say that this has been one of the more complex zoning conversations that we have had. so i think i really appreciated you asking that clarifying question. we have gone back and forth on this because of that. i think thinking about the intent of u.m.u., which is meant to be a buffer, yes, we are not going to say what can't be here, but the encouragement of p.d.r. space and other more -- and useful office space, as a buffer between the neighborhoods, was the intent. and the question here is if we are expanding the office use that is there, are we expanding -- what is the trade

off? and what is the community around it getting? i think that this is a larger comment, and i'm thankful to staff for talking us through all of this. i think there is a larger policy issue or question here. there was once a time in which housing was king, and housing was the most profitable way to build. office space is becoming incredibly profitable to build. and we have all of this office space kind of large office space downtown, but start-ups or smaller office users are kind of filtering into different places, and frankly, they are all filtering into the eastern neighborhoods. and that is having a significant impact on local businesses and on housing. and so i think this issue begs a larger question that i would love to get more information from the planning department on and how we are tracking class b

kind of smaller office space and its impact on neighborhoods and making sure -- or giving us a better rubric for how we weigh the impacts and what needs to happen for those impacts based on the project. and, yeah, i would say i think the -- actually, this is all i'll say right now. >> commissioner fung. >> i guess i'll repeat what i said last time. there was clarity in my own mind as to the genesis of the project in terms of how they were able to get the two floors of office by creating -- and it is basically a second thought of

doing the housing. additionally, i represented -- or excuse me, brought forth, that there were some weaknesses to the overall project in terms of how it was laid out. they take the taller elements and push the adjacent to the almost ally size street. and they did that for a purpose. the purpose was to not have the housing element encroach above their existing building which then had a potential impact on their occupancy and in terms of impact on construction costs. where i left the last time was for me, the biggest trade off was the housing component, and i was willing to accept the project on the basis of the housing component.