>> good afternoon and welcome to the hearing for february 13th, 2020. i would remind members that we do not tolerate disruptions. please silence your cell phones and when speaking before the commission, do state your name for the record. i'll take role at this time. (role call). >> we expect commissioner richards to be absent today. first on your age is consideration of items for continuance, number 2019-00421c at 2829 24th street, conditional use for continuance to february 20, 2020.

item 2, 2015-4109c-02 at 333 12th street, proposed ford continuance to march 5th, 2020 and item 3, number 2016 2016-006860 ika at 65 ocean avenue, in-kind agreement for continuance until april 2nd, 2020. further commissioners, under your regular calendar, item 12, 12576 1769 lombard street requesting a continuance for a medical condition that came up and under the discretionary review, item 16, 2017-010281 zrp at 23 236 el camino it is propod for continuance to march 12th,

2019 and 1769 proposed for continuance to march 5th. i have to speaker cards. >> would any members of the public like to comment on the items proposed for continuance, come on up. >> i'm representing the business opener for 1769 lombard street. i just wanted to elaborate more, the request is very sudden and unexpected. so i had been working with the project sponsor to prepare for today, you know, we communicated as late as yesterday morning. i did not hear back from them yesterday afternoon or evening and then i heard back from them this morning, shortly after 6:0f emails indicating she was in a hospital unexpectedly and had to get tests done. so i would ask respectfully, we continue this item.

i think a lot is what's hearing about the report for the last year. i can speak to that generally, but it is the business owner who has those details and i think it would be beneficial to hear directly from the business other than. >> anyone else from the public wish to comment on the items proposed for a continuance? seeing none, public comment is closed and commissioner moore. >> move to continue items 1-3, and items 12, as well as item 16 to the date proposed. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners, to continue items as proposed. (role call). >> so moved and that motion passes unanimously 6-0. placing us under consent for item 4, case number 2019 2019-020285ce cua, i have no

speaker cards. would any members wish to comment on the consent calendar? seeing none, pull comment is closed. commissioner moore? >> move to approve. >> second. thank you, commissioners, on that motion to approve item 4 and commissione commissioner di. (role call). >> so moved and that motion passes unanimously 6-0. item 5, consideration of adoption, draft minutes for january 30, 2020. is there any members of the public that wish to comment on the draft minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. and missioner moore? >> move to approve. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners and on that motion tha to adevelopms minutes -- (role call).

>> so moved and that motion passes unanimously 6-0 plases ug us on item 6. commissioner moore? >> i would like to restate my concerns about the light printing of our commission reports and the drawings. they are definitely not readable. and actually, i talked with staff and they had the same problem. we need to take a magnifying glass to the printing and it's probably the vendor needing to change cartilage cartridges. >> we made need to end up changing our procedures of reverting back to having project sponsors submit the plans on their own, currently they are being printed through repro mail, but if this continues to be a problem, we will revert

back to having project sponsors submit plans on their own. >> thank you so much for being responsetive to that. >> commissioner fung. >> i would request the status on our new offices. where are we on that? any operational issues are coming with aspects at that office. >> commissioner fung, we are scheduling an informational presentation for you from those that are leading that effort. >> reasonably soon? >> reasonably soon, yes. >> commissioner johnson? >> well within first, first, i o welcome our newest commissioner and so excited to have you with us, saw the hearings and just, yeah, it's a credit to have you part of the team and the other thing i want to mention last

night at spur, we were part of a program called regioning the planning commission, which was an idea that came up both in a conversation that i had had with chrisy long and my own time here, thinking about this incredible space that we gather in every week to, yes, talk about code and planning, but more importantly, talk about who we are and who we're becoming as a city and thinking about creative structures or designs to help better facilitate those deeper level conversations. it was a really fun night, even though that's not the most exciting topic in the world, but it is to a lot of people. it was a packed house and incredible recommendations, i think, came forward and everything from how we make the ability to become a planning commissioner more accessible to

more people, including potentially being compensated, term limits and things like that, to how we're structuring the cases that we're hearing every week to where we're holding the hearings and knowing city hall is not the only seat of power in the city. there are many places people are gathering to determine what they want for their communities and the city at large. and so, i'm still processing a lot of what was of the conversation that happened. but i definitely want to bring back concrete ideas. and i just want to thank everybody who came out. >> great, thank you. i would like to take this opportunity to welcome our new commissioner. i know she's been at the hearings over the past couple of years and she hit the ground running, glad to have you here. you may have seen yesterday mayor breed announced her new hire as the new planning

director for san francisco. yesterday mayor breed announced the appointment of the planning director and the commissioner voted 4-2 to forward a slate of candidates to the mayor and commissioner richards was absent and commissioners fung and moore were the two dissenting votes. >> i'll move to item number 7. >> i'll add we look forward to working with you, even though i'll be here for two more weeks and do call on us if staff can help go through the process and any way we can help in the meantime and i certainly would welcome that. >> definitely. >> there's a lot of one-on-one

training as we call it for a lot of new folks that come into the department. so we're happy to do that, as well. i wanted to mention, in light of the coming transition to the new director, i will be spending a fair amount of time with rich hilles going over key projects, procedures, calendars and there's a new briefing book for the working of the department and specifics of our work plan and i will be spending time to make sure before i leave, so there's a smooth transition going forward. if you have any thoughts or forwards, i'm happy to neighboring them, as well. thank you. >> item 8, review of past events, no report from the board of appeals or the historic preservation commission. >> the planning department staff. aaron star typically gives the summary and since he's ill today, i'll be doing that and let's dive in. nothing to report back from the

land use committee hearing as that meeting was hearing. but on tuesday, the board did meet with four items that are pertinent to this commission. the first was the inordinance of the administrative code regarding the north of market, affordable housing fees expect fund and that passed second read and then amending the planning code which would authorize interim activities at development sites and that passed the first read. there's also an appointment of resolution to appointment and that passed and the last item was an appeal of conditional use authorization at 95nordoff street, continued to march 10, . there were no introductions this week and that concludes the summary, thank you. >> if there are no questions, we can move on to general public comment. at this time, maternal members e

public may address the committee. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when it's reached in the meeting and each member may address the commission for up to three minutes and i do have several speaker cards, ross levy, georgia shudish, alex neuman and any others othe who wish to adds can line up on the screen side of the room. >> good afternoon, i'm ross levy, an architect in san francisco and the former chair of the public policy committee at the aia. i am here to acknowledge the appointment as the new director, rich hilles, and to pay respects and thanks to the outstanding director. i respect the mayor's wisdom in appointing something with the department and the strengths and weaknesses. we appreciate what director hilles has said publically about

bringing more focus and streamlining to the department. i do understand the need for affordable housing production and the associated idea of gee graphicageographical equity andd to benefit so housing can be produced in every district in the city. and once again, we welcome director hilles. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> welcome, new commissioner, nice to see you here. i'm georgia shudish and for the last six years i'v, i've been talking about section 317 and here is a copy for you and actually there's one i never gave out to the record and there it is, it's a letter from june 10th, 2019 about adjusting the demo calcs and i

never heard anything from anybody. i sent a letter including director ram, including the future director and now it's there and i lay out the reason why i think the demo calc should be adjusted in terms of conducting affordability in housing and dealing with alterations that are extreme that should be treated as demolitions. it's interesting, i refer in the letter to the code implementation document and i just realized that there's two code implementation documents. there's one from 2014 that saysn updated one, and the original one from 2010 that's more extensive and i have an email ask about that. but the bottom line is in the code, in the planning code itself, you can adjust the demo calcs. the reason to do is for policy

efficacy to preserve affordable housing. the other thing in this packet is an email i wrote in response to the ret which got kneecapped and in the ret, it doe does dise demolition in and i found this concerning. the ret, if you remember, the peskik legislation was getting rid of 317 and no way to deal with alterations that may be reasonable or may not be reasonable and that's the two tracks of thought. one was to adjust the demo calcs or you could do it whenever you notice it.

the demo calcs, there's a lot out there and i'll be showing pictures next week that i think illustrate this or you could come up with your own definition that's based on what was said at the two joint hearings with bic and hearing about vertical expansions and there's a copy for the record, if the current commissioner -- the former or the existing or the previous commissioners want to read it, it's in the record and i gave a copy and welcome, i wish you best of luck. >> thank you. >> thank you all. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> ilene bogan, coalition for san francisco neighborhoods here on my behalf and to welcome imperial as the new commissioner. i was at the board of supervisors and it was gratifying to see all of the the community advocates who came out

to support your appointment and gratifying when the full board confirmed your appointment unanimously. thank you for being willing to serve. i'm sure bill surrow is smiling down from heaven. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> patricia voin in 2015, i came to you in front of this board and told you if you combine all of these units into one, you'll have a housing issue and it's still happening. there's several in the marina hall that didn't even have hearings and yet they have a permit up there with permit numbers. i'm concerned about housing. if you take away housing, one unit and put a little kitchenette, they're building a big house saying this is our second unit and not using it but using it as guest houses. we also have a section of the

marina cal-hollow which nobody wants to listen to us, but it's almost totally middle-class and if this keeps going, they won't be able to stay there. we have to start thinking about the middle-class. if you look at the wording on it, it had nothing to do with the middle in the middle to lower class and they're left out of the policies of this city and that's your daughter's and your granddaughters and your sisters. and you really have to start thinking what you're doing. my second phase is tourism. you're ruining the tourism of the city in certain neighborhoods by automatically saying everything has to be modern. the lombard carter was voted on in 1997, i believe, to have more of the marina look with tile

roofs. it went to public hearings, through the board of sou supervisors. in iyou put media architecture h giant windows and when those windows stop popping and they are many of the same windows we used in fulsome street, i guarantee you, there will be lawsuit. lawsuits. i want you to think of the neighborhood character, as well. things don't have to be copies, but if you want to come out and i can drive you through the city and show you some wonderful modern buildings that fit in with some of the more traditional, but the ones that are just all windows that look like they came out of a mall in north dakota, we're going to lose it.

and the german tourists were all over chestnut street this last week and the first thing they all said was we come here because of the architecture. now this is the economics of the city. this is what gives us jobs. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. i'm laura lavin, i'm at 221 street. thank you for having us. we're really glad to be back and consult you again, congratulations to faces i haven't seen before. and the last time we attended, suggested we suggest we stick with raymond castio and matt hainey and we're grateful for all of the advice. for those who haven't leader of us, we started six years ago to

serve artists of all kinds where we live, create and work together. it's a tight-knit community of people and we love sharing it. we've hosted hun hundreds of individuals as well as group events, all of which are below market rentals and we support everyone with material, as well as in-kind support. it's a unique space. if you've seen it, you know that it is not easily replaced and both in the architecture and zoning and it is zoned mixed use, residential and that's pretty rare. it's just beautiful. and we love the community we built, as well. it's also irreplaceable and surpassed expectations and if we were to stop existing, the community would survive, but we wouldn't have a home or magnet place to get together and keep doing what we do. and that would just be a tragedy. and we are at the risk of losing

our home, not for the first time. even though when we started, our landlord was in agreement about legalizing the residential use, we've met with nothing with resistance in trying to do it. evacuee spent a lot of time, money, energy, research, trying to make this happen and we've been blocked at every corner. as we mentioned last time, the landlord signed an authorization for the beginning of our conversion and she has revoked it twice. the legislation seems to say you can't do that. we're not actually sure how she's revoking signed authorization that's been noter noterrized. this seems to deny the entire process.

thank you so much. >> thanks so much. next speaker, please. >> i'm alex numan, actually at the same address. we've decided that we're not going to have all of the people here speak at your commission, although we're happy for you to speak afterwards and i wanted to fill in a couple of other things, just because i'm not sure if they've been said. laura and i were some of the original people who founded this community and it's very important, some having other things that should be known. many inspectors have come to determine there's to life safety hazards, all fire exits are clear and all of the bedrooms have windows. we've had ongoing attempts to legalize use for years and we have spent thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars,

actually, with lawyers, and the architect was actually here and nice of him to hear, permit expediters and spent thousands of hours improving the place and it's been a huge expense in terms of hours. we need you to require this property owner to complete legalization. i probably should have brought a copy of the legislation, but just one small portion i would like to read into the record. the ordinance amending the planning code to require conditional use authorization for the removal of any residential unit, whether authorized or unauthorized and to exempt from the conditional use application requirement unauthorized units where there's no legal path or residential units, planning approval and single-family homes that are unaffordable and sound, amending the code to notice of violation order and the filing of

application to legalize an authorized unit, the planning commission approves the removal or serious imminent hazard exists, with the planning department's determine ace under the quality act and findings of the general plannings, code, section 302 and the eight plannings, 101.1. i don't have much time, but the application we sought to legalize existing group housing and community arts uses at the subject property, miss butiara contacted the planning department and said they did not authorize this application despite they're noterrized twice to do so in the application packet. it requires conditional use to

remove housing of this nature and several different pieces of legislation were passed, requiring property owners in unauthorized habitations to legalize or face enforcement penalties or to comply with the avaluse legislation and sorry, that's all of the the tim all o. the application form referred to it as 225 lemon street but the address is 221. >> got it. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> linda chapman, from what i hope i don't have to refer to as the late, great knob hill. you know, before most of your time, throughout of '70s and thg to save it. i was the community organizer. although i will not say i wasses the leader.

hundreds of people wrote letters or came down here and signed pegs and you have knob hill as it is and we managed to lower the height limits and we've bought highrises that we're werg to demolish our housing and all units would be gone. that's when we got the heights down to 55 to 65 feet. we worked with bob passmore and cbc what would be appropriate, to allow a certain amount of expansion and what if a building burned down? you had to have a garage and four stories. what if commercial building needs a few extra feet and that's why we came up with 65 feet and 50 and so forth. we had the most wonderful relationship with those people, with passmore and all of their staff for years. and when the fighting was over, i have to say it was a tragedy. while i was working this the east bay, our membership director thought, well, we're not doing anything. why are we accepting this money?

people send us money and she sends it back and closes down the organization and there was a vacuum. in this vacuum, up came two neighborhood associations. one of which was, you know, pretty much, kind of like you would expect. although run by somebody with ego and without their understanding, what is the role, that their role is that we not negotiable with the developers and come in and say we support them because they negotiated with us, as opposed to what normal neighborhoods do. the other began with wonderful people i know, bad people drive out good and almost no time, it was a corrupt little operation taking city money, went into the pockets of some of those officers. i have this from various people, including people who saw the accounts and people extreasurers and so on. somebody would come down here and say i'm representing the lower poke neighbors and we want to support that highrise and

they ruined the neighborhood. poke street turned into complete chaos. i don't know if you had any idea how bad it was because of them and because you all bowed every time somebody came in, saying they were here representing, you know, the community. and there were five people who voted in the lower poke neighbors, the architects and bar owners. i wasn't even allowed to vote because i wasn't even allowed to pay dues. nobody from the community went there, gone. they drove them all out. and so now we have a little group saying this is different people, but equally bad, corruption, you know, and also, there were a group of people calling themselves the knob hill coalition, worse than any -- my time is up. thank you. >> director? excuse me, thank you, commissioners and the property on tenth street, the speakers have come several times and wanted to say we've been talking about this internally. the immediate challenge is that

the property owner, indeed, withdrew her permission to go forward so we can't process an application without the approval of the property opener. owner. the speakers are correct in that the legislation does require unauthorized units to be legalized if at all possible. and so, we are pursuing that through an enforcement action and we were hopefully will have more specifics for you in the next week or two. but that looks like it's going to be the way we go on that project. >> thank you, director. seeing nothing further, we can move on to the item 9, 2019 2019-023608 crv from 2020-202022 work expenditure budget and this is for your approval. >> thanks, commissioners. i'm with the department staff. for a couple more weeks and this

is the last budget i'll be presenting and it's up to my successor to carry this process through the board process. but before you today, since the city's code requires all budgets to be submitted to the mayor by february 21st, before you today is the action on today's budget. so what i would like to do today is just briefly introduce it, follow up with a couple of things, questions that came up last time and deborah will present it and i'll come back with specifics. from the 23rd hearing, obviously there were minor typos and mistakes that were corrected that the commissioners caught. there was a question about followup to sb50 at the time of the last hearing we didn't know sb50 wouldn't be going forward, so, of course, since then, we learned that. however, it is true that there may well be some replacement for sb50 or similar bills.

we don't know that and we're trying to keep close tabs on that, and i think this bill, in particular, or the successor is something we would follow up on through our normal legislative process. with respect to the cultural districts, that question that came up with staffing of cultural districts, we're looking at that and we believe we have staffing to do the minimum work required of us now and i will say that as the request for cultural districts grow and they are growing, we want to make sure that we can be properly staffed. there's a lot of work involved in cultural districts and i want to say causallily we want that in the future as that gross.

let me turn it over to deborah and i'll talk more about that, then. >> food afternoon. deborah landis, deputy director of administration and i'm here for our final presentation on the budget for right now and i did want to remind you we are doing a fee study and it's possible we may come back later, maybe in april, if we are going to be proposing any changes to our fees, and we would come before you at that time, but for at least foreseeable future, this is our budget time. so one of the big excite changes from last time, i put the calendar at the beginning of the presentation and this is almost identical i brought before you last time and i'll remind

everything about the budget instructions in the mayor's office, the new transparency legislation, go over out volume because that's what we use to project our revenue and then expenditures and the director will come back up to speak for the last few slides. so we have here today after having been to historic preservation twice and having been at the planning commission once. we will be submitting a budget to the mayor's office, february 21st, as required by the charter and after that, it's at the mayor's office until junf supervisors and finalized in july. one point to note is that once it leaves the mayor's office, the total amount of the budget does not change. so the board will sometimes say, oh, we think you can cut this piece over here and they get themselves a pot of money to play with and then they do what

we called a-backs, putting back in to keep the pie the same size at the end of it. so the budget instructions this year, once again, had no new positions and because of slowing revenue and increasing costs related mostly to people, we were asked to make a general fund support reduction of 3.5% in each year. so we were able to do that. and i had it balanced, i think, probably last week, but probably not the time that we came before you previously, but we have been able to get that to the dollar. and the budget transparency legislation that has gone into effect right now means we need to have one public hearing before february 14th this year and this is our fourth one, so we are complying.

and any written feedback can come to me, deborah.landis@sfgov.org and then there's a website where all budget documents for the city will be centrally located for public access. so in looking at our volume and the workload over the past several years, you can see we had a very large steep climb out of the recession and then we really plateaued over the last few years and based on that, we decided to just keep the anticipated fee level but apply the price index. the last time we were here, we did not have the number, and it was 3.9% for the average, which is what we use per the planning code. and so, the final charges for service, which is our fees,

dollar amount for next year will be $45.4 million. and so as you can see, clearly, the bulk of where our money comes in, the permits and the projects that we review and the fees associated with them. we are hoping that we can get up to $2.75 million worth of the grants. there's one large grant in particular and assembly bill 101 planning grant and it's based on size and the most the city would get is 1.5 and we're optimistically putting that into our budget here and apply for a variety of other grants that are not quite as large. and for the development impact fees, again, a reminder that our department has the revenue coming in to cover our administrative costs, the

administrative costs of the interagency plan implementation committees which administers in all of the plan areas. and we also have the revenue coming into our department for the administrative costs of other departments that are participating and then for any funding that is going to go to agencies that are non-city agencies, for example, bart and the tgpa. that money comes in as revenue and we give it back out to them. the expenditure recovery is the services that we perform for other city departments. and you'll see on the expenditure side, we have the opposite where we pay for the services and then the general support fund number, as you can see, is going up in each of the years related to higher costs in our new building, as well as higher costs for staff, salaries and benefits are both increasing.

and on the expenditure side, salaries, the department staff is the biggest expense and overhead number is set by the controllers' office, during the mayor's phase and it will change but we don't know how to predict what the change will be. the non-services is increasing related to mostly big eirs, so the transportation element and then the -- i always forget the other one -- thank you, the civic center. materials and supplies, we have an increase because of the new building, as well, so we anticipate there will be some costs that we're just not aware of and wanted to put in extra there. and the capital and equipment is a plotter and then project is

where we budget impact fee and grant or generally what we call special revenue funding, so, for example, with grants, we're not sure exactly what the grant will award us. we don't know if it will be equipment or staff time or consultant dollars and so we put it in the project line and allocate it after we get the award. and then, finally, services of other departments, the increases are due to the new building and so both, rent and technology and aside from rent, the major, major work order is with the city attorney's office. so with that, i will turn it back over to director ram and happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, deborah. commissioners, last week we talked about the performance measures and i just wanted to give you a sample. i think your memo has more

specific measures on this page with planning and these are performance measures and every department has performance americas that go into the controller's office every year or every quarter -- twice a year. so these are ours and they're based on a number of -- we're constantly kind of trying to get these performance measures to be in a form that makes sense. and sometimes what happens is that the large -- very large projects get included on certain smaller sized projects and it skews the time frames. but i guess the bottom line, when you look at the sample measures, is that was a mixed bag. i think as some of you have pointed out, the best way to look at the performance measures is changes over time and in some cases we're doing better and in some cases, we're not. it partly is due to some of the

very large projects that have an extended period of time. for example, one of the projects that came up in conversation today was the 918 mission street project which took a long time at an extended time frame and kind of skewed the results, if you will, of many other projects in that same pot, if you will. so we're trying to sort out how to take those sort of unique cases out of the mix to get a more accurate picture of what our particular time is for some of these projects. and that is something that is continually working on, especially as we get better with the data that has been a little bit of a problem in the past getting the accurate data on the length of time, length of time to get a permit and so on, and get the entitlements. you'll also note that the total volume -- as deborah said, the volume has increased over the last few years. and this year, while revenues are slightly down, the number of projects is up, and that's

because we're seeing more smaller projects. so that affects or revenue in a different direction but increases the staff load. we're trying to sort out the measures and we're trying to get the data correct in a form that works for us. a question that often comes up with respect to the budget is what's the relationship between the performance measures and the budget? and to be frank, it's a tenuous one and partially because of the way we have to charge fees. the fee is charged based on the average amount of time it takes to actually conduct a project review or an environment review. and that's based on a fee study done several years ago. as deborah mentioned, we're in the process of doing a new fee study to take a new look to see what our typical time frames would be.

so, for example, by law, we're not allowed to charge more than the actual time it takes to do the project. for example, it could be one person for two months or six peoplsixpeople for six months. they're trying to get a handle on the time it takes to do this and we hope the new fee study which we haven't done now in several years will better inform that and inform our measures. it's a long-winded explanation but i hope that makes some sense. as deborah said, we are asking for your approval today at this budget and the planning commission does approve the budget that goes to the mayor and all departments, budgets are due to the mayor on the 21s 21st of february every year. with that, that concludes or presentation and thank you. >> thank you for your final budget presentation, director.

[ laughter ] >> any members of the public that would like to comment on this item? >> i do have two speaker cards. georgia shudish and christopher peterson. >> good afternoon. when i was here last time, i talked about the housing affordability, alternative models or contract, noncontract expenditures on page 8 online. and then i realized i had overlooked this housing affordability strategies, which is coming out this winter, according to the report online. so i have more suggestions and maybe they'll be economic cal. al to maintain, preserve, keep affordable housing. one is oversight of occupied units seeking approval. if you think back to the karl

jensen incident a couple of years ago, he was not listed on the sequa document, on the kad-x. it was left off but the neighbors knew he was there and once the neighbors saw he wasn't on that list, that sort of made people get involved with the issue of preserving his housing. and so, i think that the sequa document is an important way to show who is living there. and there's a city of wide resource survey founded for two years can be used to highlight smaller, older multiunit buildings that can be flagged to the small site's program or that they can add an adu to the garage. demolitions that have a cau hearing should make findings what is desirable. the increase in density but with efficient use of interior space and then i think developers

should report on the occupancy tenure and that would be applicable for adus. and then, finally, the demo calcs for major alterations and you can adjust that to effectuate policy efficacy and you have the ability to do that. it's in the code and still there. it's hard to find the c i.d. online, but it's still there. preservation of existing housing because that's the most affordable. so with that, i'll give you this for the minutes and thank you very much and good luck. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon, i'm christopher peterson, a resident of district seven and i'm disappointed that the staff recommendation uses sb50 as a reason not to devote substantially more resources so updating along major transit lines in western neighborhoods of the city, to allow substantially more housing. given the housing and climate crises, it's imperative for the city to allow more transit oriented housing. ithe western areas have not come remotely close of bearing their fair share. the board of supervisors did recently designate western areas along major transit lines as priority development areas. but if the city fails to follow up on that action by updating

the zoning to allow much more housing in those areas, that will be yet one more piece of evidence on the need for state-wide legislation to require local governments to finally start approving more housing near transit and major employment centers. thank you. >> thank you. networks speakernext speaker, p. >> good afternoon and welcome to commissioner imperial. we're almost at a ful full seve. i'm corey smith in support and there's so many fantastickenings in here bufantastic thingshere n the room is that staff and commission spends a lot of time on items that are not at the same scale or impact as some of the other items and in one agenda we'll see three items in

a row, where we'll have a significant project with thousands of homes and, you know, very complicated and i don't know iandsomething later s critical. and so it's to fault of the department or the commission. it's been the systems we have set up, but in the future, we lack forward to opportunities to, perhaps, take some the work that we can collectively agree doesn't need to have all of you yet into the minutia and have the process work more efficiently across the board. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. i'm sue hesser and i have two observations. one is the pim map that's a

measure of measurement. i'm one of the people who uses the pim all of the time and i refer all other people to use a pim. i have found that the planning department really could use some advice from members of the public, not just from developers, about how to present the material on the pim. it drives me crazy using the pim because the system changes all of the time. when you raise questions, and say oops, that should have been on the pim. you need more vehicles for the public to give imput to be listened to, not those where you go around and put posters on all of the th time.

that doesn't work, but i want to mark up the pim is an important measure and secondarily, we've had a little bit of a scandal in the past two weeks about the hest payments. they are where a developer someonorsomeone who gets a perms money or contributions, including non-profits. and the planning department has a requirement the people be notified that they are under the rules that are ethic's rules that govern permits. i am not very happy with the amount of attention that has been paid by people who are getting permits. they need to know that the minute they come through the

door with a permit, they are not allowed to give contributions to supervisors or to the mayoral candidates or other people like that. i think at some point, the planning commission would be benefited by having some explanation of what is going on. in particular, we have friends and city planning and i hadn't thought at all about the relationship to city planning with gives us of money from developers and put in to the planning department, eventually.

thank you. >> any other public comment? seeing none, commissioners. >> i have a question. >> commissioner imperial. >> yes. >> this is just for a point of reference for me, racial equity and updates, is this more of like in terms of contracts, is this more -- what is being it ig used for, contracts or staffing? i'm just wondering? >> yes. so the non-personnel is non-staffing and contracts are a big part of that and also like leases on the copying machines and really anything that that's nothat's not aphysical good andf time.

>> ok, so not even for consultant? >> yes, for consultants, yes. so a contract with a consultant or various leases, not the lease for our building, but various leases we pay and any services. >> ok, thank you. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks so much to the staff, again, for coming back and presenting this budget and really helping us get a sense and having two conversations about the priorities and the future of the department. i think last time we spoke, the subsubstance was wanting to make sure in this ever-changing complex legislative environment that we are properly staffed and

supported to do all of the things, not only that we are called to do, but also that we want to do, to make sure that planning is doing its best work. and i understand absolutely both the constraints and how we are able to work with things. i just want to remind fellow commissioners that we had talked a little bit about just making sure that we're elevating the conversation about this budget and not only here, but as supervisors in the mayor's office think about how the department can be supported and advancing of schools around racial justice and equity, around environment and getting more housing in district four and district 7 which actually is a part of the proposed budget, for example. and so, thank you for the work and i'm happy to support this program and just a recognition

that i think it will -- i know supervisors will have their say in some of the budget and things will be moved around, but just want to say thank you for putting this all together and for creating the foundation for an important conversation. i feel comfortable with approving this budget. >> commissioner moore? >> a little bit along the line of what commissioner johnson just said, i would like to know as to whether or not now there will be no staff additions we were able to accommodate somewhere a tenant position we had for a long time didn't i ank there's an answer but i'm in the sure if i'm able to properly locate that. i'm delighted to here that you are suggesting to add additional staff, where there may be eight. i think the commission would still like to see the senior historic preservation leader for

the group. perhaps you can be carved out in what is or adding somebody as we are going along and working around the eight districts becomes more substantial. >> commissioner, on the tenant advocate issue, we did not -- there was not a position created specifically for that purpose, as a kind of full-time position. what we have been trying to do is train all of staff who work on projects to work on that issue, so that it's not a single person on that issue, rather than having -- in lieu of having all staff work on that issue as they're working on projects. and you will also say it's a bit of a challenge because of the mission of the rent board and what they're supposed to be doing on this effort versus the work we do and so we've been trying to train all staff to do it to the extent that we can, to be those advocates, if you will.

and the historic preservation commission, as you know, rather than creating one position that had been previously held by tim frye, the functions of that position have been divided amongst three other staffers, planner four manager staff or above. primarily for the reason that since the preservation program has grown extensively over the last ten years from when that position was last created, there was simply a volume of work coming into that one position was no longer tenable and simply was creating big bottlenecks in the department's work plan. and so the function that was handled by that position is now handled by jeff joslin as the primary voice at the preservation as well as elizabeth john and jim cray who have training. so that function has happened since that position was vacated

and we believe it's actually working better, simply because of the volume of preservation work since in the last decade. >> i am comfortable with taking that as an answer to the question. i'm sure as we are going along for the next years, the commission will continue to stay in dialogue if things are really working, and again, challenges change. for an interim, i think it presents a solution to what we considered in the past to be a problem and to summarize, i am in support where we are with the project at the moment. >> commissioner die. >> i, too, want to thank staff for all of the the work that went into this and i can only imagine how much time it took together, all of the data and i am supportive of the budget as proposed. i have one clarification question and one suggestion. clarification is on page 14, in the first full paragraph, where you are talking about the work

of environmental planning and are listing the private projects that are going to have eirs prepared going forward and then list a number of them, including 3700 california and a second sentence talking about the ones near completion or on hold. i would have thought 3700 cal would have been in the list near completion or on hold, because we're about to consideration a certification. >> that's correct. that's correct. that one is almost complete. the only reason it would continue if there's an appeal. >> the suggestion is, with eight cultural districts on the horizon, it strikes me that if i heard you correctly, that you have the resources to do the bare minimum, but i would like to encourage staff to be in conversation with the board of supervisors and the mayor's office, stressing the importance of this work and making sure there are adequate resources to do everything that's been

requested. >> i appreciate that comment. i would be very happy to pass that comment on to the mayor and the board. when this all -- the idea of cultural districts first came up almost a decade ago, i believe, and japan as a first one, we looked across the country for models and couldn't find any. so san francisco as been at the forefront of creating this and it has become a very important program. i'm very much supportive of this program, as is the staff. we have the minimum staff necessary, but frankly, if the program grows more, we'll be charged to keep up with it. so i appreciate those comments very much. >> commissioner imperial. >> i want to make a comment in the future of budget for school district districts because threabecause there are eightupc. i think those are very important

things for the planning department and especially for the data in order to be real accessible to the public. and i would like to see that in the future. i'm comfortable with this, but following up on commissioner diamond and commissioner moore to work with the board of supervisors and the mayor for the cultural districts to have more budget. >> thank you. >> commissioner moore. >> to strengthen the voice in support of cultural district, i would actually encourage an historic preservation and planning commission meet with each other in order to strengthen the voice of what our objectives are and i think it would help the department instead of communicating with voices, let's come together and make it a stronger request. >> jonas has so noted. [ laughter ] >> commissiocommissioner johnso. >> building on that comment, this is something they brought up at the last hearing on this,

i think it would be easy and possible for us potentially to maybe send a joint letter or letter along stating our desire. i'm happy to work with whoever would be interested in doing that and with jonas to make sure it happens, just so we make sure these things are going part and parcel. >> could that be done? can something be forwarded wit h comment? >> i believe we can. >> sure, yeah. i mean, if it's a joint letter, you want at least both commission presidents to review the letter, but we can certainly do that. >> ok. let's do that. >> ok, just to weigh in, if the commissioner wants to send a letter to the barred, it would probablboard, it wouldhave to ae

permission to one or two to draft the leader and send it to the board. >> outside of a letter, i ithat could be accommodated. >> if it wasn't a formal letter, we could la relay this to the bd which will happen in june at this point. >> ok, great, maybe we can make it a party and go and testify or something. >> great. >> i would entertain a motion to approve. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> there's nothing further, commissioners, and a motion seconded to approve this budget.

(role call). >> so moved, commissioners and that motion passes unanimously 6-0. >> thank you, commissioner. >> commissioners, that places us on item 10 for case number 201 2018-001443 pca and map for the zoning map amendments. >> good afternoon. diego sanchez, pregnan presentiu with an ordinance to amend the zoning map to reclassify properties largely in the m1 and m2 industrial districts to production distribution and repair or pdr districts. it also amends or proposes to amend the planning code to one clarify existing retail limits in certain pdr, as well as accommodate submitted permit applications under the proposed new zoning controls.

commissioners, the m industrial districts are the oldest strictly districts still in use and these districts allow the gamut of industrial uses, including those involving heavy truck traffic, noise generation, as well as obnoxious emissions and allow sensitive uses such as retail office and housing. the utility of the permissionability has been in question for some time and a sensitive use is like housing and office located adjacent to the m districts and the need to balance compatibility and quality of life with the preservation of strictly used land has arisen. this largely rezones railways and public rights of way to pdr. properties with public uses, such as the waste water treatment plan and it proposes to zone other properties, either rh, rm or mixed use. senate bill 330, the housing

crisis act, requires that cities when reducing housing capacity and property expand it elsewhere at a commencerate level. the m zoning generally allow housing with use based on lot area. some of the proposed zoning stricts, such as pdr, do not allow housing. to comply with this senate bill, we'll evaluate possibly housing, proposed for rezoning and quantify the lost housing capacity. any reduction in zoning capacity from the proposed ordinance will be off-set by an increase in capacity elsewhere in the city through a separate ordinance. in this case, it's envisioned to be offset by the perero power plant project and the commission recommend approval of the resolution to initiate the planning code and zoning map amendments on or after march 12th and not may 13th as stated in the staff report. this change is to coincide

within increased housing capacity provided by the power plant project and provide sin synchronization. in the meantime, staff will continue to refine the proposed zoning changes and look at old zoning overlays to refine this ordinance and we would like your direct to do this work. direction to do this work. that concludes my presentation and i'm available for questions. >> thank you, mr. sanchez. anyone from the public like to comment on this item? >> sue hester, i'm requesting

diego add a couple of pages. people in the community don't know how extensive the m zoning was. it came up both sides submission downtown and there was industrial things when i went to law school right there, golden gate university. it was an industrial building. so a history of what happened when h we adopted the downtown plan into cg3 and c3m and o as well as the eastern neighborhood's plan which kind of wiped out a lot of the mission industrial zonings.

they were moved out of one area and into another and set up affordable housing committees. i don't think the planning department staff knows it well. they're too young and they don't a history in san francisco. and so i just would say, this is an opportunity to use this just to plot out the maps that i have in my office and the planning

department has is how these zones changed. so you have a better understanding of when you're confronted by people in the mission, in the south of market, about being pushed out. you're aware of it. so we have something that we don't have to put me pulling all of the things that are in hard copy. the planning department should have it in this report. i think it would advance, because i think this is a reasonable request.

>> sue and i have been around a long time. i watched the people that were promised houses in the philmore when they lost their five-bedroom houses, i'm seeing the same thing happening in the bayview and in outer mission and the exact same game that was played in the '70s. and i think when you start looking at these changes in the zoning, that you should look at the history. sue is right, because we saw it. we saw people kicked out. and we saw them illegally evicted. we're seeing the same thing we saw in the 70s happening now. chinatown is one of the worse offenders right now that people just being kicked out right and left and they shouldn't. and they've been there 50 years, some of them. and so, how do we keep the balance? and i think instead of just -- i think they should bring some of

us in so we can tell the history and not make the same mistakes we made before. thank you. >> thank you, anyone else from the public wish to comment on this item? >> thank you, commissioners. in general, i think this was a good idea to take a holistic look at the m1 and m2 districts and evaluate what's the appropriate current zoning, whether it's pdr or urban-mixed use or residential. and i did want -- what i'm speaking about today is a matter on your calendar for next week, which is, there's a small area -- and if i could have the overhead -- a small area in the bayview which is a grey, light grey on the map, which is zoned m1 industrial triangle that is expiring and it is zoned m1, and

it's surrounded by residential districts and public districts and we think it makes sense for that piece of property to be added to this analysis so that the m1 -- the appropriateness of future zoning for that area of the city is incorporated into the holistic process. instead, what's coming before you next week is a proposal to rezone almost the entire area to a pdr 1 district that would not allow any housing or other commercial uses. the property owners the district are not in favor of that and would like more time to looked at a mixed zone. it doesn't seem appropriate to rush this little triangle when you're initiating this week, a more holistic look in the city. so i know this is not an action you can take this week but i wanted to bring this to your attention and i would ask you to suggest what's being initiated

today, incorporate looking at that former redevelop area, as well and the redevelopment is expiring later this year. it's about 30 or 40 years old. the only new building i'm aware of is the flora grub nursery and the property owners and tenants in that district don't think restricting it and the small lots across the street from residential districts is the appropriate way to go would like a more holistic look at what makes sense in looking at all of the districts zoned at m1 and m2. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. corey smith on behalf of the san francisco housing action coalition and we want to associate ourselves with

mr. vettle's comments, when we have the most severe housing shortage known to our city, state, country, world, understanding the impact on housing is really, really critical. thank you. >> thank you. >> and any members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. director ram. >> a couple of comments on this. one, this has been a long-standing goal to clear up the m districts. the m districts were odd, frankly, out of date zoning that allowed almost any use and if you recall, during the planning process, a goal was to identify the areas that we should retain for industrial uses, which we now call pdr, and protect those uses by establishing a district that did not allow housing or office. and so, one of the primary goals of this particular piece of legislation is to actually reflect that and to reinforce the policy to protect pdr.

and with respect to the industrial triangle just mentioned, this has been an ongoing discussion in bayview for the better part of the year and several meetings in the neighborhood and we realized awhile ago it would revert. with respect to the speakers, there's a disagreement about this and some of the property owners believe we should change m zoning into a zoning classification that allows housing and staff believe it is more consistent to keep that zoning into an industrial category, except for the third-street corridor we're proposing to do and see. it is our belief that it is more consistent with the current city policy to protect the pdr zoning in that particular area or protected pdr uses, if you will, by changing it to pdr zoning. that discussion is ongoing. there's a series of meetings in the neighborhood and admittedly, there's been different points of view, but we believe it's more consistent with our goals to

protect pdr uses to keep that land as an industrial base and i wanted to explain that. >> thank you, director. commissioner fung. >> a question for staff. i understand this is initialation, but is staff leaning, then in eastern neighborhoods where if you couldn't request exceptions to the pdr uses, based on what they have been allowed under an m1 or m2 zoning. >> we're not proposing any legitimatization in this. it talks about staff surveying open permit applications and the report found or the search found one open application and within

the ordinance, we're trying to accommodate that request. but beyond that, there's not envisioned a legitimatization program akin to what happened in the neighborhoods. >> that will be up for discussion, i'm sure. >> i am supportive of the initiation of this and recognising that, you know -- and i would be supportive of any edge areas which always create further discussion and questions of what should or should not be rezoned, should be included in the study. given the fact that there is flexibility in what may or may not be a particular zoning, i'm prepared to move on this. >> commissioner moore. i have a question. the six parcels that are in our package, illustrated in our package, they are the ones subject to this particular ordinance, correct?

>> that's correct, yeah. >> i would like to point out for those who do not have the particular visuals in front of you, that there are only two out of six who really entail slightly contiguous pieces of land. it's either to the slicing of the middle of parcels, either frontages from abandoned right-of-ways, together of what i recall being a railroad right-of-way, compromised of all shapes. so what is in front of us is really nothing that creates substantial areas of rezoning, four larger uses because all they do is complete the pattern of this contiguous land uses and when you look at the land-use coding, they are already pdr, so you would not be adding any

residential capabilities. on this, you rezone larger tracts of lan land use. it's important to understand what's in front of us and i would be happy to pass mine on to those who would like to see it, because only then can you appreciate what the department is trying to do, which i fully support. so anybody who would like this piece, they could borrow it from me and look at it yourself. >> do i hear a motion? >> a motion to initiate and schedule for adoption in march. >> second. >> commissioners, if there's nothing further, there's a motion seconded to initiate rezoning and schedule a public hearing on or after may 13th, 2020 -- >> no, march. >> on that motion, commissioners diamond. (role call) i.

>> that motion passes 6-0. >> commissioners, we're on items 11a through d for case numbers 2015-00940 gta, tca and map and for the market in octavia area and business and tax code amendments and zoning amendments. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm with the planning staff.

this is about creating diverse places to live and work in the city but we need to put this in context and what decisions and policy choices are being put before you. over the coming weeks. this fulls into a bucket we would call neighborhood planning area and the most recent area plan in which the city considered is central soma. however, there are key differences in the name o naturf what that was and what this is. central so mentioner ma was to n neighborhoods plan and this is different from what this is. in that case, they were considering to rezone the significant part of the south of market, from a low density, largely dense area that did not allow housing or office to one that did both and to consider what would make that transformation appropriate and that resulted in a new area plan. this is not that kind of effort. this area, historically known as the hub, is part of the market

octavia plan adopted over a decade ago. as part of that plan process, the commission and board significantly rezoned this subarea of the market octavia for high density, raising some to 400 feet and a plan to accommodate 8,000 new units in the area and that is the course in place and that framework is what set the course and are under construction to date, including 1500 mission, 30 otis and others. the fundamental land use choice of transforming this from low-rise commercial to high density residential center at the city's arguably biggest transportation cross-roads is set in place and will continue to happen in an implementation of the plan. this plan amendment is building on the framework to accentuate

and improve the outcomes and designs of the remaining sites, to spread some of the benefits and improvements to adjacent neighborhoods and to simply get more housing, more affordable housing, more units overall. and one thing that did come out of the conversations around central summit was a resounding call for more housing in south of market, particularly in adjacent neighborhoods city-wide and here we are, barely 18 months later, with a set of adjustments to allow 16 or 1700 more units in addition to the 8,000, which is a 20% increase in an area for high density housing and, as well, the opportunity to get over 400 more affordable units for more moderate families to live in the central part of the city that would not otherwise have the opportunity to do so. this plan amendment is about those policy decisions and it is not about whether there should be 8,000 units or not or whether there should be high rises at

market and vanesse and this proposed amendment is on the solid frame to augment and twek it with more contemporary insights in the last few years and with that, i'll give it to lily lane to walk you through it. >> good afternoon. i'm with the planning department staff and the action before you today is initialation of amendments to the general plan, the business and tax regulations code and zoning map. we were here last in june of last year and so today, i'm build on that update and walk you through the key recommendations and legislative changes.

>> while the plan set the framework, they didn't receive this until 2012 and this is because of the recession in 2008. so in 2016, we took the opportunity to take a step back, are there ways to increase the affordable housing and improve the public realm and we felt large public workshops on key topic areas as well as ongoing engagement with residents and other community groups. in july of last year, the draft spawdraft dir was published ande hope to be back on or by march 12th to adopt the dir.

there are three key goals guiding this work and first and foremost, to increase the amount of housing, affordable housing in a location that's transit rich, to develop and coordinate designs for the public realm and explore changes to the area holistically and rather than looking at the street one by one. and then also to define and prioritize how impact fees will be spent. so this work will result in amendments to the existing market in the octavia plan which includes the height and zoning map, updated objectives and policies, amendments to the planning code and updating the market in octavia implementation program and all documents are included in ordinances and i'll walk through them in a second. so, just a quick reminder, you know, as this planning effort is underway, projects do have the option to move forward under the current zoning and we're seeing that now, 1500 mission is almost

complete and 30 otis just started construction and there's a lot happening in a relatively small area. there are three projects that are seeking additional height through the rezoning and that includes 10 south venice, 30 involv30 vanesse and 39 fran. first for land use, this map shows the existing zoning on the left and on the right is the proposed zoning. most parcels are nc3t or nc3g and we're creating one to have consistent controls and consistent fee requirements across the area. in addition, the whole area would be included in the vanesse and special market use * distri. for heights, i know this map is hard to see but there's more online and i'm happy to provide other copies to anyone interested, but the map on the left shows the existing height limits today and you can see the

towers between 250 feet and 400 feet are already allowed and market and vanesse. most are 40, 85 feet or 125 feet. so we're proposing to raise heighheights and some are goingm 50 to 65 feet and some from 85 to 120 and the most significant increases are happening at the two intersections. and heights are not being proposed to increase on any parcel that have existing housing units and as josh mentioned, just to highlight, the biggest change we'll see is under the current zoning. so the current zoning allows for eight thousand units. if we were to increase heights, it's an additional 1600 units. so given the changes in land use that we can see in this area, and the increase in the number of people that will be living and working here, this is an opportunity for us to look at

the public realm, the streets and the alleys and open spaces. this includes preliminary designs for most of the streets and alleys and we've been building on that, working with our partner agencies and we developed a public realm plan with conceptual designs for streets and alleys and they're analyzed as a part of the sequa document. so with new development comes new fees that can improve and fund infrastructure and fund housing, as well as childcare. evacuee calculated thwe've calct fees and we estimate about 728 million to be generated under the current zoning. if we increase heights on the 18 sites, it's about 30% more. in addition to the inclusionary requirements that exist for this area, projects in this area are subject to two additional affordable housing fees and this

is unique, and the reimbursements here arrequireme. if we would add the area impact fees which they're subject to pay, we're able to achieve 29% overall for affordable units.

related to that, we've been working with strategic economics which is an economic consulting firm to test the feasibility of raising fees or raising the affordable housing requirements. the results of analysis show there's limited capacity to add fees or requires on the smaller projects as well as towers and this is a trend we're seeing city-wide and projects are not penciling and they've doubled since 2013. and they've increased 5% in the last year. so in addition, the affordable housing requirements as i mentioned have increased by two-thirds and so what we're trying to do here is maximize public benefits to make sure that we're getting the most for the city, to be able to fund infrastructure and affordable housing and making sure the projects move forward because if the requirements are too high and projects don't get built, we don't get the housing or the fees.

so while we're not recommending to increase the requirements, we are expected to get more by simply increasing the development capacity on a few sites and i'll walk through your specific public benefits for each of the five categories. so first for public housing, we estimate -- affordable housing, there's $682 million for new on site units as well as housing resources for the city. and it's about 2200 housing units and the fees from the upzoning is about the equivalent of 688 units and this helps us to achieve about 29% overall. to put this in context, the housinhousing bon was passed bos is for $612 million without subsidy. and transportation, $116 million to improve transit service and capacity and we're looking

closely at the vanesse station, the sfmt has been leading the study to understand and as the projects wrap up, this funding could be used for that. we've estimated about $71 million for streets and alleys and this would fund resign of the major streets in the area, as well as living areas. 57 million for childcare and schools, including $20 million for childcare and $7 million for capital investments and i would like to highlight the department has been working with the school district, as well as the study called the southeast framework to identify needs and opportunities including schools in this area, as well as the broader soma and southeast part of the city. and the last category is parks and open spaces, so we estimate

$32 million and i've identified the following priorities. so money for the new park, improvements to the cannon mall, improvements to specific projects in the civic center identified through the realm plan. and then, potentially new open spaces in the hub as they become identified. and i'll point out that the hub is a relatively small area, and many of the open space opportunities lie adjacent to the area. so we're proposing to expand the boundary which money could be spent to better serve adjacent neighborhoods. so i'll just pivot for a second and touch on a few things that came up in the hearing in june and i'll walk through the legislation. in the commission, when we presented in june, a project update, so a lot of questions around racial and social equity and sustainability and i wanted to talk about that in more detail. the department is deeply committecommitted to all of our

neighborhooourneighborhoods anda plan at the end of last year and we're focused on embedding that lense into our planning work. so things like area plans and design guidelines. the department also has a number of stabilization efforts, including the sustainabilityization strategy, the ongoing work of map 2020 and our cultural district work, particular to this area and the mission and in soma. so the hub itself is a relatively small geographic area with about 23 housing units and it's directly adjacent to soma, the mission, civic center and western addition and these are low-income communities of colour in some of sanfrancisco's most vulnerable neighborhoods. almost all of the census tracks in the area are identified as communities of concern. in response to the feedback that we heard in june, evacuee been workinwe've beenworking with ann

this project. this assessment includes gaining a better understanding of the existing racial and social despairties, understanding who bins and who might be burdened by a project and finally identifying the strategies to advance social and racial equity. so as part of the work, we started by identifying specific goals, displacing people of colour and vulnerable populations and decrease small businesses in and adjacent to the hub, increasing affordable housing for low housing residents and ensuring the washingtonsidewalks are safe and comfortable for anyone and engage vulnerable populations to ensure that they benefit from investment opportunities. so we anticipate that this

project could provide the following benefits. first, more housing, more housing near transit and providing access to jobs and amenities and other opportunities. up to 2200 affordable units and $682 million for the city and improved streets and alleys and improved safety for people to walk and bike and new and improved open spaces and recreation and no direct loss to the existing housing units. we're not proposing to increase heights on any parcel with existing housing. there's also some potential burdens evacuee identified including a potential loss of industrial and retail jobs, as these one-story industrial buildings transform into mixed-use buildings. over time, the risk of small business displacement, changing demographics and retail and also, less tolerance for homeleshomeless encampments.

and i also wanted to take this opportunity to identify some the concerns that we've been hearing about this project. we've heard a lot of concerns about ground-floor use and usesd making sure they're useful and making sure the materials feel inviting and that lastly, and i think at the forefront of some of the concerns is that market rate housing could add to the pressures in the adjacent neighborhoods. we're expanding the money so we can serve neighborhoods like soma, and the western addition, building more housing overall and provide on site affordable units and resources for the city. and we're not proposing to increase heights on any site that had existing residential uses and we've added a new

policy in the market octavia area ma plan to apply an equity lense to future land-use decision-making. in the report, there's more on this, but i just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight that work. the next topic is around sustainability and the planning department has been leading the development of a sustainable neighborhood program and to provide a comprehensive approach for environmental performance, quality of life and this work was presented in detail to the commission lastlogic. last month and it's centered around five clear goals through the pursuit of 15 targets and objectives and each aline with current city commitments film this highlighte

new requirement and that's an expanding roof reimbursement. requirement. in addition, through this work, we've taken an opportunity to add some policies and objectives into the general plan, to address sustainability and climate resilience and proposed one policy that addresses each of the goals in the sustainable neighborhood framework. so now i'll walk through the four ordinances before you today. this includes the general plan amendment, the planning code amendment, the zoning map amendment is the planning code and business and tax regulations code to establish the hub's sustainability district. so for the general plan, this is really an opportunity for us to look at the general plan and really update it to reflect the

latest policies and we mentioned the market octavia plan was in 2008 and the city has done a lot of work in the key topic areas in racial and social equity, climate resilience, supporting families with children and we wanted to take this opportunity to make sure that all of that language is reflected in the area plan. the ordinance is provided in your packet under 2.2 and a summary of all of the general plan changes in the materials 6.4. we're proposing to remove the projects for seek a conditional use for additional parking. we're expanding some of the controls that are in the existing nct3 zoning districts

to provide more neighborhood serving uses, limiting the retail use size and putting restrictions on formula retail and adding a new requirement for microretail and these are tools that we're hoping will help to support more neighborhood serving uses. we're expanding the bedroom reimbursement in nc3t districts, for two and three-bedroom units and proposing some changes to the floor plate size and sculpting tower controls and expanding the boundary and impacts which money can be spent. a full summary is in 6.5 in the packet and the ordinance is in 3.2. the zoning map amendment would socially rezone the nct3 parcels and there's four publically owned parcels currently nc32 and we're expanding the vanesse to cover the entire area and

establishing new maximum height and bolt districts on the 18 sites. the last piece of legislation before you is the hub sustai sustainability. this would apply to buildings 120 feet or lower and projects are to meet certain criteria with on site affordable housing and providing 10% for very low income households. so just to conclude, this amendment builds off an existing area plan adopted in 2008, after an extensive planning effort and we're proposing to increase heights on 18 sites to create 1600 units and 434 affordable units and allow 34% overall.

this would generate $682 million in resource for the city, $164 million than what is lied under the current zoning and generate $276 million in funding for streets, open space, transit and school care and $71 million more than under the original zoning and to use impact fees from development to improve parks and soma in the western addition. and the department recommends approval to initiate amendments to the planning code, the zoning map and business and tax regulations code and schedule an adoption hearing on or after march 12. that completes my presentation. >> thank you very much. commissioners, if i might just add to wrap up the staff presentation, just a couple of comments. this has been a work in progress for a couple of years and it does -- is i want to reinforce a couple of points staff made. first of all, this is the

initiation and we're happy to have discussions over the next few weeks before you would take action. to remind you, this was an area zoned for highrises up to 400 feet at the intersections and the idea is to simply build on that existing highrise zoning. thirdly, and i think joshua made this point earlier, there was a lot of discussion about the job's housing balance and the concern about adding so many more jobs without the requisite number of housing units and we believe this does partially address this issue by adding housing close to market, in an area that does have hardly any housing and we'll soon have howing coming up housing coming up. i want to acknowledge south of market and the mission, in particular, about the potential to create additional

gentrification. we believe the displacement pressures are real in the city as a whole, which is why we've taken the mission and are expanding that to the larger community stabilization efforts you've been hearing about. we believe that needs to be done in a city-wide context and that this particular plan is adding housing in a place that is needed, that is already zoned for high density housing and the broader community stabilization efforts that we have underway need to be a part of a much larger city-wide effort which is what we're trying to do. in fact, in two weeks, you'll hear the neighborhood affordability strategy. i want to make the points that this is a component of a plan that was adopted ten years ago, adding heights and densities to an area zoned for high-rise development, adding to the stock and moving forward in a way that is part of a larger community stabilization effort. thank you. >> thank you.

thanks again to miss langua and miss sworsky, good information. i'm in support of initiating this today, not only because director ram's comments but this is probably our biggest major showcase, intersection in the city and this is the place for transit-oriented development. >> to the clear, chair, no sper cards, but we sha take public comment. first come, first serve and anyone else in lane, please line up on the screen side of the room.

>> we ask for the initialation to be delayed until critical issues have been addressed. some of the concerns resolve around the recent appointment of the new planning director with whom we've had no opportunity to discuss our significant issues regarding this major rezoning and that as we've all pointed out in the slides is kind of in the center, around a bunch of different neighborhoods with a lot of jenty industr gentrificae still have a vacant planning commission seat for which would be pretty useful to have whoever that person may be or if it's commissionecommissioner richardm

weigh in on. there's a completed office of rearacial equity framework thats been approved by the planning commission and the board of supervisors imperative, in addition to the need for a more equitable rezoning that stresses community serving and community stablizing rather than downtown zoning that does not serve the needs of our communities. to wrap up, the need for more substantive, environmental transportation analysis of the impact of the plan around upon the surrounding communities and our coalition is made up of the community action network and the cultural heritage district, and the tenants and owner's development corporation, the hate ashberry neighborhood

council, and the cultural network and we appreciate you taking time to hear that. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i think as somebody who participated throughout the market octavia plan and participated in all of the hub workshops, too, there's a lot of good here, but i still see gaps. parks, traffic, and affordable housing. parks, there's a tiny park in here that gets very few hours of daylight is so the proposal was to have improved parks that are half a mile or a mile away, some across market street, uphill and while that's nice for those people, it doesn't necessarily

serve the people in this area. traffic, you know, the vehicles, miles traveled formula doesn't work here and these -- it ignores, the planning commission has been ignoring tncs with 79% increase in traffic in san francisco. the people who live in these buildings will be using them, having deliveries and they'll be having services and, perhaps, o the traffic thing needs a much greater study here. as the city keeps rising, we have a number of city residents ha arresidents who are further and further down on the ima scale.

with bmr housing, they have to annually recertify and make this much. we have a lot of people in san francisco who do not qualify now more affordable bmr housing. so we've got to be looking at the larger picture here about affordable housing that includes permanent -- not bmr but permanent affordable housing at the 80% and lower. i say this, also, because i've heard a presentation recently that something like 45% of seniors in san francisco do not meet the 30% threshold and they are not eligible more affordable housing. and while i'm a homeowner, i'm lucky a lot of people aren't. so please, look more at the equity issues and affordable

housing. there's good here, but the traffic is going to be a nightmare in this area and market street and getting the cars off of market street to push them on to the side streets here is not a great solution. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon again, commissioners. corey smith on behalf of the san francisco housing coalition. evacue.we've been involved to gt feedback on this proposal since the beginning and our most recent proposal was in september of last year and we are here in support of the proposal. our office, i think some of you may know, is in the heart of the hub and we're kind of smack dab in the middle of it. and so every time i hear a pile driver at the building next door, that's what people don't like about this stuff. but it's all progress for the city and it is moving our city

forward and bringing amenities and bringing a park to my office community and it's bringing a lot more housing and a lot more subsidized affordable housing, which we think is fantastic. and it was mentioned earlier and i think the city needs to continuously explore ways to try to figure out how to get that transportation piece to work effectively, because we are creating a lot of jobs in downtown san francisco and we still have an office and job shortage even, given that. so how do we find ways to incentivize the future residents of this neighborhood, of this community if you work in downtown san francisco? how can we make sure we're getting you to ride the muni or ride a bike or scooter down market street everyday. if you're on bart or cal train.

how can we make this more natural and easier for residents not to use their cars on a daily basis and other modes of transportation when possible. we certainly want to encourage that. (please stand by).

>>heim here to say exactly what i said several months ago. unless we want to continue the mass displacement of our communities of color and continue the pipeline to homelessness, san francisco cannot continue to push plans like this forward at a rapid speed using the same types of plans that have created this crisis. and saying that it was zoned this way already is unacceptable. we are hearing that the social equity programs and studies are in progress, but they are not done. they are not ready, this isn't

ready to be implemented, and all we keep hearing is we are working on it. we need these in place before something like this moves forward. and even hearing that, well, we are not increasing heights on existing properties, so that makes it better, it makes it clear that it's not understood that the radius of displacement is real, and it's tied to property values, not just raising heights of existing buildings. and it makes it clear that this work needs to be done in these communities are not being heard. and we can continue to push things like this forward, and we can continue to build navigation centers and provide services for the homeless, but we are creating more and more homeless residents every single day through these plans that we're pushing forward, and without a social equity lens, and we will

never overcome this humanitarian crisis that is happening on our streets every day and happening in all of your neighborhoods, especially if you live in the mission, soma, tenderloin, you see it every day. you see your neighbors being pushed out of their homes on to the street. and we need to slow this down. we can't be approving this in march. we need to do it right. we can't continue to do this anymore. take the time to get these studies done. the social equity work that's being done right now, take the time to get it done. and incorporate everything in the mitigations and the value capture and all the things that we need to do to keep these people in their homes so we don't just continue this pipeline into homelessness. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm an employee at the french

american international school. school is 58 years old. we started in a victorian in alamo square, moved to the uc extension campus and then to hayes valley with the old cal trans building along with the chinese american international school. we've been there 23 years. we have about 1100 students from pre-k 3 through 12th grade all over the city and all over the world, about 33 percent of our students receive a discount to come to our school. we love being in hayes valley. it's been a great transhub for families and students who travel to school on their own. we own a parking lot at 98 franklin street which is in the hub. and since 2012 we have been working on ideas to develop that property. for about the past four years, we have been working with lily and the team at the planning department on the hub project, and we think the goals of the

hub are absolutely critical with affordable housing and street improvements, and we think we have a project, a mixed use project that combines a stacking of different uses at our property that would be very beneficial to the neighborhood and to the hub project and rezoning that's being proposed. so thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm with united to save the mission. there are several new faces here since the last time we talked about the hub. a special welcome to commissioner imperial. for me the hub and the large buildings that are up zoned for are like big rocks landing in the water with ripple effects. i lived in hayes valley after being displaced. i could only last six months. we were watching a single real

estate entity buy all the properties. for the last 17 years i'm on the other side of the hub on the mission street side. i know there's been a lot done, as you all know, we are living with the harms of the 2008 eastern neighborhood plans on a daily basis. it's imperative we continue to visit the hub plan and make sure we are doing the right things. i see the executive summary, we have to do more than just have racial and equity social equity as a bullet point and a couple of matrixes. we can't ignore the amount of vulnerable affordable housing stock within the adjacent areas and within the hub itself. we need real defense mechanisms which can prevent the buildings from being turned into hotels. a real survey of leases of small businesses, potential displacement factors need to be taken into account, create a defense mechanism. i think of small businesses like

the green arcade bookstore, they need real protections. we need mandatory community serving ground for businesses, especially in the up zoned parcels, not upscale places like the equinox gym. you look at some of the matrix, we describe potential burdens, on loss of jobs where we are tying turnover due to change in retail demands. further through, there's a mission of mitigation, but the mitigations in the equity goal matrix, it talks about monitoring and tracking only. track neighborhood demographics specifically the black, native american, american indian, latino and asian population. track other vulnerable populations such as seniors and low income housing. a goal cannot be just to track something. you need to make things work for it. watching a virus spread rather than preventing it is what that feels like. on the monitoring side, work

with oawd work to prevent displacement for people of color. we can't just monitor, we really need something in place, we need more time to make this stuff happen. lastly, apply the racial and social equity tool to impact fee programming. what does that look like? i think we need to sit down, study some of these things and come up with real plans that have teeth so we can move forward. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> commissioners. i live at 100 van ness, i've been involved in all this planning stuff in the area for maybe 20 years. i'm on the board of directors of the civic center community benefit district which you may know has been renewed and expanded and covers more blocks in the hub area than before. you will now have a budget of

over $3 million instead of $800,000 for better community and ambassador work and other things. we are interested in improving the pedestrian and citizen experience, particularly at the market and van ness intersection which can be pretty rough on occasion, particularly in the he was just, people going home from work or coming to concerts, we know that many people have discontinued their subscriptions to various arts organizations because they can't stand dealing with that stuff anymore. i personally am in favor of having more housing and more people in the area so that we have more customers for the existing shops, including the green arcade, which needs more customers, as well as to fill the current and future empty spaces, there are three in my building which what empty, and they can't find any tenants.

it's not like the landlord is trying to hold out. and i want to make special note of 30 van ness, some may not be aware the city sold that to the developer under a special contract. the city owned the building, and i believe that in that contract is a provision that must put in the building 35 percent affordable, 35 percent. and so there's a really tight squeeze, and that's why they need, which i believe is the 60. also you may know that the property is being developed by an outfit called strada. it has a large component of affordable housing, and that's currently on one of their parcels where the navigation center is, the second one will be in the old city college site. i can say from personal

experience that that civic center hotel has caused no problems. so i think we should initiate it, if for someone reason there's a little glitch, you can have a meeting on november 12. pardon me, march 12. certainly get on with it. i mean, this is, you know, been going on for five years. so let's move forward. and make the area that i live in better. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. similar to, we had a meeting last night about reimagining the planning commission and thinking on a big scale and how we should all be thinking about solving these big issue problems. and what you're hearing today is that echo of that. people are asking you to solve all of citywide problems in one

zoning, rezoning thing. and that's not possible. but we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and so i encourage you to listen to them and start a citywide conversation about how are we going to meet our social justice obligations, how are we going to reduce displacement and make that a bigger top priority rather than project by project and small rezoning by small rezoning to get that big picture in mind. but for now, we still do need to walk. i want us to chew the gum, and i want us to walk. and we need these units. this is walking distance to twitter, uber , my office. i was with mike, i would love if you would please legalize more apartments so i could potentially move to an apartment that is walking distance to my office. the way that we stop displacement is by putting housing near jobs, there are jobs, there are more jobs coming. potential soma plan has passed, and we are going to see more

jobs coming. the question is is there going to be enough housing to absorb that. and i want to say i'm speaking on behalf of not just action but the haight ashbury neighbors for density. i guess they would support something like this as well as, i'm just pulling out my list. sorry. i had all these slide issues last night too so i know this is fun for everybody. housing is good. i'm sorry. northern neighbors, haight ashbury neighbors for density, progress noe valley. thank you so much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. welcome new commissioner imperial. peter with mission economic development agency.

and i just want to pick up on a few of these points and actually kind of try to narrow our discussion of what the request is that came in from the coalition, because i want to point us to what those key asks and concerns are. they are not potentially about some of these other issues, which is number one and director stepped away, but i want to point out we want to thank director ram for initiating some of these race and social equity plans. he played an instrumental role in that. we have a new director. we haven't had any opportunity to discuss significant concerns regarding this plan. and particularly regarding where we are in process. we are initiating this planning moving forward and yet as another speaker or two mentioned, we still have an office of race and social equity that's just been set up. it is not fully staffed yet. it doesn't have a complete

framework that it's sharing with our other departments such as planning and others of my those other departments are all individually evolving their own race and social equity planning which would be applied directly to this plan, but they are not done yet. it seems that we really are serious about this kind of equitable planning, that we are going to build out the city, but we are going to do it in an equitable fashion, we would make sure that our tools are ready to go. we wouldn't rezone a significant area which planning staff said very clearly is situated in the midst of a number of vulnerable communities. and this is not a critique of staff, this is just where we are process-wise, we are not ready to rezone a major area, up zoning it, we haven't even integrated, myself i didn't notice integration of any of the pertinent studies including the one that says up zoning is the likely outcome is gentrification and increased land value. so are we exacerbating wealth

inhe quality? that's -- inequality? we believe the framework is not in place yet. and that's one of the reasons why it's missing. we are not going to put this on staff. they are using the tools that are developed so far. but this is a major change. it is in a very important area. we do expect a number of harmful impacts, many of which have been highlighted by other people. so we would ask that those two steps happen first. can we advance these office of racial equity staffing and framework? can we advance the individual departmental plans? are they ready to be applied directly to this? they are all underway? can we make that happen before we initiate and find time to have a conversation with the new director? thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm a hayes valley resident for

a long time. been very active in hayes valley neighborhood association and van ness corridor neighborhood coalition. i'll be speaking for myself today. many of my comments echo what your second speaker said. her comments really are 20 years of working since the market octavia plan was adopted. along with all the work in shaping that. as she pointed out there are many things that have evolved since then, whether it's the impact of tncs and hope delivery which we seem to ignore in this still, which is frustrateing. there are many very good things in it. eliminating the fight on every property, putting in a c.u. for parking and outlawing that is wonderful. but you have to really ask yourself if you are getting a high bonus, why isn't parking

eliminated from the height added? this is such a wonderful transit-rich area. similarly, there seem to be things that if we are really trying to be as comprehensive and mobilize as many resources we can, we seem to have missed some opportunities. we talk about schools and childcare, receiving $57 million, 37 for school capital investments and 20 for childcare. the biggest issue is always where are we going to find it and why is it so expensive. have we worked with the developers about putting these things into their developments when we talk to van ness, that was one of our challenges to them. how can you get more childcare in here? could you have a school instead of some of this parking? the need for retail to really be

attractive and engage the community and be rented as opposed to what we've seen with van ness and other projects that still major tenant is not there, is compelling. but back to the school issue. we haven't really looked at 135 south van ness, a block jere area owned by the school district. they are talking for the last 10, 5, 20 years, it should be school of the arts. why aren't we looking at something to really get that going, get major funding coordinated from all city agencies, the schools, these other resources, major outreach campaign so we are using this square block that has been one of the most unattractive. there seem to be some wonderful options that we have not explored yet. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> i want to talk about transit. the importance of van ness avenue and that whole intersection of van ness and market and south of van ness cannot be understated for transit and getting around. one of the big problems in this area right now, it's swarmed with vehicles. buses coming up from the peninsula, uber and lyft, everything under the sun. the school that has a proposal to go onto 98 franklin should take the advantage of there being a school. kids, we've got to get things oriented to people not driving, people walking, not being driven

to school and dropped off by their parents or their au pair or whatever it is. people that are young in school are concerned about global warming. we should be concerned about global warming. we need to reduce the traffic in this area. one of the things that happened when the planning department approved the expansion of the c. t.o. in -- a long time ago in the downtown plan was the supervisor was cynical about the planning department's projections of how people were going to shift their mode of transit. but it was office workers. so supervisor provided a mechanism for reporting back for monitoring how the buildings were doing to educate their people about using fast passes, et cetera. that's not the solution today. but there needs to be a solution

worked out for all the new residents and all the new tenants going into those places like if it means something, you are advised not to be -- delivery trucks delivering everything that you want because it's convenient to you and you're a tenant at market and van ness or a condo. and there should be an education of people to walk, bike, use transit and reduce the impacts. uber and lyft have to be pushed out of that area of swarming that is disrupting traffic. there needs to be a lot of attention paid to conditions put on every building, not just looking at the building about how does the space play? that is what the staff does now.

but how are we going to educate the people who come into these buildings about using transit and walking and biking. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> something keeps bothering me about the transit issues. you don't miss the core issue we have. it's just not uber and lyft that's causing the issue. we have janitors, retail people that now cannot live in the city. they are coming into the city, and i have identified many of them in our neighbors. and they are sleeping in their cars three nights a week because

they can't afford to come back and forth. this whole thing that i've just heard about affordable housing is one of the biggest scams i have seen over years. and they don't seem to the politicians seem to just keep saying oh, we're building it. that's it. they are not taking care of our core workers that have to come to this city. and what's going to happen, is the s fm ta has a dreadful plan of let's get rid of -- let's make it really congested so that we can do congested pricing. these people do not have the money to come in, drive from modesto, pay $9 fee, because it's cheaper than bart because you have to pay for the parking too and then have to pay

congestive pricing. any time you look at these big plans, you've got to start looking at the interior issues of who, who is it really serving? and the word affordable housing, we've got to change that law to make it really affordable. even the middle-income cannot, low middle-income cannot afford to use many of these units. and we've got to sit down and do something. and it's up to you. i'm willing to meet with any and every one of you. and just an example, they are doing it all over the city, but i've got the towns. they've got to take 200 parking places away from the marina. and they are putting transit steps in front of small businesses where there's already one that it's not in front of a driveway or a small business. what's the real reason of what's

happening? and this program is a perfect example of what i've been talking about. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> commissioners. opposed to this plan as it now stands. and the basic reason is it's the vision that it is for the future of this district which has the map on this handout and as the staff earlier showed, it's almost all community of concern, almost all of it, is wrong. it's wrong for the future of the city, it's wrong for here. what is the vision? well, your equity analysis, which is very unsatisfactory, there's not much to i, doesn't tell the full story.

who's going to live here if this plan is built out? they say perhaps 29 percent affordable housing, but we know many of those have to see out. because there's not much affordable housing site included in this plan, we would be lucky if 15 percent of the future residents might be people in affordable housing, lower, middle-income people. the luxury high-rises this plan will allow will wind up, of course, in the upper floors with great views and very high prices and very high rents, be occupied by millionaires. and that's probably going to be about 50 percent of the population too, the wealthy, the flat out wealthy. and the rest of the housing, the other 70 percent market rate, will basically be very well-paid professionals. and that's who you're saying the hub should be for, that's the

vision for this district of our city. now the community concern for its future. and of course the retail and the district, because the district will be basically upscale, will be expensive. the rents will go up, of course. all the commercial rents will go up. there aren't any real community facilities here. there's nice parks, i appreciate that, but there's nothing for cultural heritage, there's no job program in this plan. there is no community building in this program. and i looked at the plan earlier this morning just to think about it, i saw there's a public realm section, and what i just described about who is going to live there and the market projects will dominate, there's a private development section. but what is not in your plan and what has to be in there before you initiate it, before you proof it is the community realm. approve it is the community realm. where is the community realm in this plan? it's not here.

that's what's wrong with this. continue this, please. we hope to talk to the new director about this. this plan could be made much better and might be something that people could support. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you, commissioners. i'm jim chapper representing the san francisco bay area planning and urban research association, speaking on behalf of the market octavia plan amendments that we have heard today. in this spring of 1996, 24 years ago, spur asked the mayor to convene a meeting of community leaders asking that neighborhood planning be restarted to prepare land for construction of homes in the city. at that time it had been ten years since the last neighborhood plan was done. the mayor agreed and this resulted in the better

neighborhoods process. it took an astonishing eight years for the market octavia plan to be passed. but this plan obviously has been very successful in helping create homes in the city. we all undershot the demand for homes, and it is necessary to revise this plan to enable additional home construction. the proposed amendments you have heard today help fulfill these needs and moreover, they give an importance to this aptly-named neighborhood, the hub. please move forward with all deliberate speed on the proposed amendments. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else wish to comment on this item? okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner imperial? >> hi. i have a question. the question in terms of the timeline for the racial social

equity studies, what is the timeline right now on that? >> you mean for the department as a whole? >> the planning department. i believe there is a phase one, phase two, phase three in terms of this racial social equity? >> so i can speak to what i know and maybe john can add. but the action plan was completed last december. and that constituted phase one. so now we are in process of phase two. and phase two is really focused on applying the lens to our direct planning work. >> and the phase three will be when? >> there is a phase three -- there is no phase three. it is our budgeting, our staffing, and phase two is kind of the outward-facing work like planning efforts. and i don't know the exact timing, but i think it is meant to be completed by the end of the year. >> okay. and is that including with a

community input? what kind of process are we talking about? >> yeah, very much so. there's a very extensive community process that's coming up oaf the next few -- over the next few months. >> okay. because i'm reading the legislation right now, and it looks like it's just one section of it. and i'm seeing in other parts of when it comes to sustainability, there seems to be a thorough, you know, analysis on it, but not much on the racial and social lens at the same time. so for me, if we are to have displacement and gentrification, that it really needs to have a more study, more data, actually. i would like to see more data that is coming from the department of homelessness and supportive housing, from the rent board and also from o.c.d. as well. it is quite complex, you know. we are talking about the a.m.i.

changes over the last how many years. that can be something that can be input as well in the racial social equity in terms of the socioeconomic study. so that's why i'm kind of wondering as to what is the process are we on right now. and i want to understand that. and that needs to be something i would like to see in the legislation or in the planning itself. >> i think for a lot of the city-wide work we are doing around these key stabilization issues like the howing howing a- housing affordability issue, they are taking a look across the city and where applicable we can apply it to certain neighborhoods or projects but many of these things are interrelated so looking at in a city-wide stale gives us the most comprehensive look.

>> also my second question will be about the outreach. what kind of outreach has been done when it comes to the market? has the department outreached to the other districts like d-5, d-9 and d-8? >> we have been working closely with the market octavia c.a.c. that was established when the plan was adopted, and that's supposed to be representative of the entire area. we have large public workshops in and around our office. our office is within the area, reaching out to specific neighborhood groups as well as citywide groups. we've met more recently with representatives from the mission and from soma talking specifically about the racial and social equity issues and those conversations started toward the end of the project, probably at the beginning of 2018. >> okay. >> commissioner johnson. >> thank you.

so there's so much i want to say. i want to add a little context. i want to talk about the last hearing and where we got from that hearing to this one. i want to answer some of the questions that you've brought up, and then i have some general comments, but i'm going to try to keep it brief. so to replay the top lines of what's in front of us and what we are considering, we are thinking about initiating a public hearing on this. this started in 2008. in 2016 we decided to do a lockback coming out of the recession to think, we have a process for this, this area is zoned already for 8,000 units of housing. given everything that's happened, including central soma, should we try to get more units from this plan. so then another initiative was undertaken to do that. we are now looking at this piece

of land and saying, hey, we can get another 1600 units, 400 of which could be affordable housing, $235 million more to the city. and we don't want to do this as business as usual. so in addition to all the inclusionary housing and other fees that are associated with projects, we are going to put special fees into place for this area in particular. and in the last hearing, when that was brought forward and we heard from united to save the mission, i agreed that i think there was a real opportunity to go back and take this plan through a racial and social equity lens, and really both name the role of planning, what our social and racial equity framework and implementing it and making sure we are not just talking about what the impacts are but actually what are the tools we have in our toolbox today to address some of these issues, who we might need to work with and how that can be

baked in from the beginning so that as departments work on implementing this, we are working as one city family to make sure we are achieving those goals. so i did read the letter that came in from united to save the mission this morning. and i just respectfully have to disagree with the idea that we should continue this project. one, i actually just want to, before i get into why, talk about and commend staff for the racial justice and equity analysis. immediately after the last hearing, we had a conversation, i know it has been months of work to come together to think about not just what the impacts are, what the planning department's role is and what we can do, but also to engage the community and others. and i really appreciate that. taking the first step, talking about, one, the impact, the risk of impact of displacement, displacement is real and

gentrification is real, that we need more affordable housing options won't be and that we need to make sure the impact money is really spread to all the communities that will actually be impacted is incredibly important. talking about the potential benefits but also the potential burdens and additional community concerns, every concern that was brought up in that last hearing is listed here, in addition to talking about how we might mitigate or adjust those things. strategies to mitigate the burdens, everything from microretail to thinking about how we are working with oewd to make sure we are stabilizing not just this area but surrounding areas. and monitoring is an important part of that as well as using the tools in our tool kit. and so i guess i would just say that i want to give credit where credit is due. i think this is actually what

i've wanted to see from an area plan, and i think it is thorough, as thorough as it can get at this stage in the process, and of course there is more to do, but it really helps set us up for a deeper conversation on what strategies, what ideas community might have to go a level deeper, what ideas mohd might have. and so instead of delaying this decision, i think one thing with the office of racial and social equity, super excited that they exist and are in the world. but we don't know when they're going to be fully staffed. but we do know we've been working on a racial and social equity framework for two years. that is actually been implemented through this plan. we do have a new planning director. and so i would be open to making sure that that new planning

director has a month for his feet to get under him, to meet with these groups before this comes back. i think that's reasonable. but i think i really think that we actually have the tools to take action on so many of the concerns that have been brought up and make sure that we are not just talking about them and implementing them and that this case report takes that step, and now we can work together and make sure that mohd is there, make sure that oawd is there, make sure somebody from the supervisor's office is here, so that we are all on the same page about how not only we want this baked in from the beginning but how, any time a project comes before us or there are proposals related to this area, that we are all on the same page about how we are looking at it and how we are implementing. so that's what i wanted to say. >> commissioner fung. >> question for staff, and then

i would raise some of my own points with respect to the plan. it was discussed at the info meeting, but does staff have any idea of infrastructure capacity in this area? can it support what is being proposed? >> can it support? will the existing infrastructure support this? >> yes. >> yes. >> and how do you govern that? >> well, i think it's part of the do you means that are involved as part of the e.i.r. >> i don't think that's quite my question. do we know there's sufficient abilities to hook up to sewer lines?

>> it does look at all of that. p.u.c. is very heavily involved when we do these big plan e.i.r.s, they are heavily involved in that analysis. >> there wasn't a lot of detail there. but, okay. in your opinion, and staff's opinion is there is sufficient capacity? >> i think when we think about rezoning and adding capacity, we're looking at our ability to deliver infrastructure, we are looking at our ability to have complementary community facility, we are looking at everything holistically. >> we'll find out. in terms of my opinion, there are several issues. i'm in agreement that we should initiate. i think that the timing is probably too short to bring it back to quickly in terms of march 12. a couple of areas that i would be interested in further discussion is, one is the what

uses would be encouraged at the ground floor. that would be one. i think the template that staff provided to us yesterday on the sustainability is a good start. there's probably some tweaking there that i would be interested in discussing. but one of the other things that struck me is i don't know whether it's a contra con dictit one of the desires of this is to have family housing. if you look at high construction costs, and our our city has note through a cultural shift in terms of what is appropriate unit and room sizes. if it's intended to be family

housing, then it's intended to have units that are quite expensive, because the units are going to be priced based on square footage. and i think we should revisit the unit mix that is being proposeed here, and, in fact, im more of the opinion if our intent is to create sufficient number of housing unit, we should be looking at smaller housing units. anyway. it's my thoughts. >> commissioner imperial. >> yeah, i understand that the initiation will start the discussion of all things that are being addressed or needs to be addressed in this issue. but i guess my experience as well is that we tend to have

zoning plan amendments that are based where development, where it's based on developments going to be built, not on the people that already exist in that area, the existing workers are traveling from the west side through the muni train to the downtown, not from the workers who are traveling from north to south. we are not -- my thing is that we are not doing plans that are based on the people. and that's why i'm kind of like, you know, i would like to see the racial and social equity study so that there is a better comprehensive or there's a better understanding of really who is going to be, you know, who is going to be really affected, not because there are buildings, that are already going to be in place for that.

or there's already existing up zoning buildings already in that. i mean, again, what's the effect of that up zoning is that existing area and also in neighboring areas as well. so that's why i would like to see the racial and social equity first in order to better understand this general plan amendments and its impacts. >> commissioner moore >> i would agree with commissioner imperial that at least a sketch of the ideas for this particular area regarding social and racial equity is being presented. i know that you're still trying to create a broader view of it, but it would be, i think, important to have some sketch ideas about it at least available right now. i would like to ask you, if you don't mind, i was actually struck by your comment about

community building and a lack of community realm in the way you see the plan. would you mind elaborating on that? >> if you look at the central soma plan as it turned out after our settlement negotiations, there are affordable housing sites. there's going to be a new public swimming pool for the south of market. there's going to be some affordable neighborhood retail space, and there's going to be some affordable art space. and there's also going some other community organizational facilities incorporated in the development. none of that was ever on the table in this project. none of the big residential developers have even been asked to provide space within their project or perhaps adjacent so it in an old warehouse they buy close to it for these kinds of purposes. that's just been left out. and of course it's about the people. in the future, who will live

here. lower income households can be very uncomfortable in an upscale district. it's not without a proactive community building program. somebody working on it, it's easy to be estranged. i know, i lived in mission bay for five years, and market rate condo. my neighbors were nice people. but they had no contact with the lower-income neighborhood residents, none. and honestly, they talked about it, if they didn't know what i did, would discourage you. you have to have a proactive, somebody has to work on it, be responsible for it. thank you. >> i take that comment actually rather serious, because those are the beginning points to also effectively talk about social and racial equity. the plan itself is really building almost on the greenfield site. it is really about division of

sky scape and urban skyline and all kinds of things. but what he is describing i think is exactly what community comments today brought forward. there is something which i call the connective tissue sure for all intents and purposes, and this is the integration of the people who live there into this plan. it is not so much a criticism as it is asking for you to consider the next step and do that, this initiation will most likely go forward today, however the real work is for me personally what he was speaking to and what also i think commissioner imperial was touching on, those things all resonate with each other. so i would encourage you to get the full support from this commission today to immediately basically go into a fire drill to address these issues and work with the community to really

line item by line item create tasks for yourself to come to terms with them. >> commissioner diamond. >> i too am in favor of initiating today for many of the reasons articulated by commissioner johnson in particular. however before it comes back to us, there are three things that i would like to see happen. one is i do absolutely think the neighborhood groups should have the opportunity to meet with the new planning director, voice their concerns and understand where that's headed. secondly, i'm -- while i would love to see all the small retail at the bottom of the buildings, i'm really concerned about creating vacant retail, and the ground floor may create an opportunity for some of the space that we would need for community benefits such as described by him, and i think it ought to be explored and that's an area where i would like to

see more work before it came back. the third is i am intrigued by the idea raised by ms. hester about the need for education of residents about -- i'll put them broadly under the category of t.d.m. but how we make choices that have an impact on climate change. it strikes me that our t. d. m. s are an opportunity to explore the education that should happen on the choices front that she mentioned. so i am intrigued by that and would love to see more exploration of that idea as captured in conditions of approval that go into the n. s. r.^ >> since we are admitting to each other that there will be gentrification or most likely displacement, what i would like to see and i'm not sure if we have the tools, that any affordability is locked in to be

realized on-site, there is no ability to fee out in the building itself, because that is where i think ultimately the physical integration occurs. >> commissioner johnson. >> thank you. along with that, and i just, i want to comment and share that i also agree that understanding the demographics is incredibly important, and i think what i would also just add is i think there was a lot of commentary around affordable housing in this blanket term that we use and the question of affordable for who. and so we've actually had many conversations about how affordable housing truly is community serving, looking at whether or not the rates are set at what the surrounding a.m.i. is versus city-wide, a.m.i., and i think that that is an

important line of inquiry going forward as well. >> commissioner imperial. >> in terms of the transit, i would like to see actually, because i'm a transit rider, and i know that trains usually break down on the van ness area and castro area station. i would like to see analysis on the -- i know -- like the adequacy of the muni transportation in terms of the buses and the trains. because it's not just the residents in that area that are traveling but also all over, from the west side of san francisco to the north and south of san francisco are going to go through that area.

so i would like to see more good transit analysis as to where people are coming from, where are they traveling to and also in terms of that as well is the not just looking into the tech companies that are working but also the other forms of occupations. [please stand by]

the project under construction at 1500 mission is doing affordable at 20%. 30 vanness the city-owned parcel or was is doing 25% on site. the project at 98 project is doing affordable on site. the market plan is structured so it is on site and there is another fee on top of that to get to the 29%. so most of the projects, the one project is the one you approved last year at otis street. they did fee out. future projects, of course, we don't know yet. there is a fair number of units to be built in the district. we don't know how they will play out. with respect to transportation, i would just say the goal of the plan was to create a situation with no more parking in the district than under the current

zoning. we are ramping down the parking maximums so there would be no more parking in this district than there would be if we didn't change zoning at all. that was the goal from the early stages. i want to remind everyone we believe for that reason the traffic impacts will not be much greater than they are today. i think that was the only comments i had. thank you. >> commissioner diamond. >> it seems uncomfortable, and i get this from the comments from the neighborhood groups we are asked not only to initiate but to adto adopt or go to the boarf supervisors prior to public lakecation of phase -- publication of phase two. i would be interested in hearing

a progress report as to where you are and what ideas are considered so we can make the decisions in the context of that. >> i make a motion to initiate. >> second. >> on schedule for april is more appropriate than march. >> commissioner johnson the notification for the march 12th hearing has gone on.

today's initiation would include that. the staff would work with members of the community to push the date out further. because it has been noticed it will show on the agenda march 12th as continued date to a later date. >> we will initiate and schedule adoption for on or after march 12th with the note that it is important to us that there is time for the community groups to meet with the new planning director. >> understood. >> commissioners if there is nothing further there is a motion seconded to initiate and schedule the hearing on or after march 12th recognizing that will be pushed out. (roll call). >> so moved commissioners that passes 5-1 with commissioner imperial voting against.

item 12 was continued. >> i would like to acknowledge that we were made aware this morning that i think the new director will start on marc march 2nd, is that correct? >> i believe the start date is march 9th. >> that would make it harder to allow what you were suggesting really a proper set of meetings to occur. i wanted to have that on the record. >> commissioners item 12 was continued. >> we are going to take >> good afternoon, welcome back to the san francisco planning commission thursday, february 13, 2020. i will remind you to silence your mobile devices during these proceedings. item 12 is continued to march 5th. that places us on item 13. case 2018-01124 the c.u.a. at

1567 california street. this is a conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon. department staff. the project before usa request for conditional use at 1567 california street at the intersection of california and polk street. the ada bulk district and nobody hill neighborhood. this would demolished the two-story commercial building and conduct a new 80-foot tall building containing 100 dwelling units and 9800 square feet of ground floor commercial. there would be 10 class two spaces on the sidewalk and no proposed off street vehicle parking. it requires conditional use pursuant to 121.1 and .7 as the lot is larger than 2500 square

feet andro and would result in 0 square feet. it uses the state density bonus program for those above the 93 units at the site. through the state density bonus they are requesting waivers, rear yard exposure and bulk controls and seeks concession from ground floor height. the condition must make findings in addition to the c .u. findings. i want to note the project's notice indicated a waiver from height would be needed. it is within the 80-foot height limit of the district. in accordance with the state density bonus law they are providing five units at the 50% a.m.i. which qualifies for the

up to 20% density bonus. in addition the project will meet the rest of the affordable housing through combination of on site and payment of housing fee. there will be nine units on site, five at 50% and two at 80% and two at 100% a.m.i. consistent with section 415. this satisfies 47% of the overall requirement. the balance which will be paid through the fee. that including inclusionary requirement on the bonus units as well. the balance of the fee payment is approximately $3.24 million for the project. to date staff received a letter of support from the polk neighborhood association and received five comments in opposition to the project and a few general inquiries. concerns focus around the

overall scale and massing, particularly with concerns about impacts to the adjacent at 1424 polk. lack of parking for the commercial businesses. impacts to ad adjacent businessd the loss of the business that occupies the current corner of the site. it is consistent with the general plan andness and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. it provides housing over half of which are two and three bedrooms served by transit and bicycle infrastructure. it is well articulated and includes materials. it includes approximately 10 by 42-foot set back to minimize impacts to the adjacent building.

it replaces storefronts on polk street and california street. we recommend approval. i am available for questions. >> project sponsor. >> could i have the computer, please. thank you, commissioners. welcome commercial imperial. the project site is at polk and california. ideal location for a car-free residential development of this scale. the intersection of two muni lines and one block from the vanness brt and bus line and several transit lines in the vicinity. polk street is reconstructed with bike lines and east-west

bike lanes within several blocks. neighborhood services available in the district including grocery store two blocks east on california street. i will briefly describe and point out that mr. lee and the project team have been extensive neighborhood outreach. there were meetings with the two adjacent neighborhoods on several occasions. many meetings at 1424 polk street residence which resulted in the courtyard. the owner of that building and entertainment are satisfied with the project. we do have a letter of support from the lower polk neighborhood association which is in your packet. i will describe the program and david baker will go through the design. we have 100 dwelling units, 50%

are two and three bedroom homes. there are seven commercial spaces on both polk and california street. the height of the polk street store front is 20 feet, generous storefronts. lower floor heights on the california street side because of the state upheld slope. 101 bicycle parking spaces, 10 class two spaces and no vehicle parking. david. >> thank you, steve. this is david baker of david baker architects. i will go quickly in the computer. so just some diagrams. this had a previously approved design, i think 63 units. one of the things that went through was the notion of stepping up to the corner. there is a gateway site. the building is three to eight stories on the street. this shows it from across the

street right there in front of the swan oyster depot. you can see the gateway part. we broke up the massing so it doesn't look -- we are not trying to make it look like four buildings. it is four masses. it has a contextual grain that fits with polk street. this is looking down california, the cable car line would be in front and you can see how that is working. we also called out the items in different colors. this is the plan for upper stories. one of the things i want to point out is that we don't have light limited bedrooms, which i think is achievement. we are around 50% twos and threes, with more than the normal meeting just the minimum. again we have 117 bike spaces. then we have an active ground

level wrapping from polk up to california. this shows the base plan. one of the things we did is stepping to the corner, we widened the sidewalk. this is a q zone. it makes the polk street sidewalk is vital and active. the sidewalks are narrow. this gives a lot more space for public space. it is taking private space and bringing it to public. this shows the seven storefronts. we have a flexibility. when you consider sizes of storage you can lay it out so that it can be small and you can combine them. if you are interested in having storefronts that aren't vacant, flexibility. look at the commercial district that are very flexible. i urge you not to limit that. this shows polk street with the

stepping up and in towards the corner. in terms of residential light cord at 1424 that we have this three-sighted light court that is 10-foot back. this you can see it looking in. that is a slot and it is also a portal so we have a rear courtyard that is visually accessible in the street both california and polk. there are two portal. the darker parts are the building spanning over. it makes a passage through. the lighter green are open to the air. there is a courtyard and the whole thing. it looks like that on polk street. thank you very much. >> we are going to open this up for public comment. anyone wishing to address this, please come to the microphone

and line up on the screen side of the room please. >> 117 biking units and no parking. three and four bedrooms, have children. children have to go to school. unfortunately, our school system does not put the children in the neighborhood they live in even though they are trying now but it is not working. you must have a car unless you want to take two hours to take your child to school and from school. i think you should make fewer bikes and some cars because there are going to be parents that have children in this building, these buildings. you can't do it any more because of the schools. if you have still with the school system even the public one, you may have one in clear

lilly and one over by the western addition. you have to go to two different schools. this is a problem for parents in the city. you have to have some form of vehicle. i am sorry you can't get rid of every one of them. if you are bringing in families, they need cars. then there is the children that come home from school, each separate school. by the way, mom, they want a dozen cupcakes for tomorrow morning and we are supposed to bring them. mom, they want this special item for my art class. unfortunately, most schoolteachers don't tell you ahead of time. then comes the child that gets sick. you have got to get them to some form of doctor, to emergency room. we are fortunate to have urgent

care. a lot of neighborhoods don't. you must consider any of these units in the steep. if you are going to build for families you better have some parking spaces. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my wife and i live at polk street since 2003. we are long time residents law-abiding citizens. we have witnessed the degradation in the neighborhood with the closing of the theater, the bookstore, the opening of boxes gyms and closing of boxing gyms and the overall quality of life which is quite noticeable due to homelessness, crime,

carjackings, feces on the street, deranged persons walking. my car has been broken into three times. you know, our concern is that what is happening i am not an architect, not a city planner, don't have an engineering background. can only assess the quality of life and it has gone down notwithstanding we are surrounded by high rises. the austin which is similar to this, the construction which david baker outlined. the austin which is approximately the same height as scrunched grubstake and cultural icon between two large buildings hasn't done anything for the quality of life, congestion and dirt and homelessness and crime on polk street. i feel this is just another

example of a pretense of affordable housing. how can this project with nine units out of 100 at affordable housing be considered providing affordable housing. it is not. 9% affordable housing the project is able to extract 20% density bonus and waivers. if i understood correctly it is no longer 93 feet but 80 feet. i read 80. it is a slap in the face of a -- what is describe understand the project presentation as a historic landmark building 1424 polk street. this is what we are doing. slapping in front of the historic resource, yet the high rise upscale luxury condo, which has done nothing for the quality of life in the city. also, please consider that the building is lived in by my wife

and i. my wife is leukemi leukemia surr treated. low immigrant family with two children and two senior citizens who have fairly serious illnesses. slap in the face of the people who are living there. it is going to do nothing for the neighborhood which is being encroached by the turn-in the rise in tied in degradation. >> next speaker, please. >> i am adam. i am on the board of the lower polk neighbors. i am a decade plus resident of the polk street neighborhood. today i am speaking on behalf of myself and the lower polk neighbors. we kind of va different perspective. we strongly support the project. we feel the process with the project sponsor as well as david

baker architects is positive. they have come to over the past two years present the evolution of the design and i felt like those conversations were very productive. i am an architect during my day job and i think a beautiful building. it is going to enhance the neighborhood greatly and to the point of not having any parking, that is a strong point. this site at the corner of polk and california is on the historic california cable car line, a block away from rapid transit on the 19 polk line, a block away from one california and three brocks away from two and three lines to downtown. it is extremely well served by transit. i don't think this project needs parking. i think david baker architects

has done a good attention to paying attention to the ground floor experience on polk street. we are in strong support of the project. >> next speaker, please. >> hello. you grew up in this neighborhood. my parents lived there 40 years. they have been in the neighborhood since the late 1970s. i want to go back to what the speaker spoke of earlier is the loss of cultural sites and identity in the area. i think a question is like the polk street does it need a high rise? out of the closet and the vintage store represent for the neighborhood? a place for people not extremely wealthy, people in the city who have considered gentrification, a people where they can go who

are not part of that fold, to be together. it is also out of the closet is a thrift store to h.i.v. research and care. it is an institution on polk street. to give another high rise unidentifiable building. this will change the character of the neighborhood further, create a divide between people low income or working class or continue to live there after a long time. it will continue to put the character a much higher standard where wealth is the only way to have status. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> . >> speaking for the heritage of the nobody hill neighbors. if there are all these outreaches to nobody hill,

pardon me neighbors in the neighbors i would know there are meetings. i live less than a block on this. i did learn by going to the local meetings. these two other groups if they exist, one is not on the website. the other one doesn't advertise. i did wind up being told there was a meeting. as to the people who are stakeholders i am going to describe who the people who identify themselves as stakeholders are as i have been to the supervisors. my concerns are it says 87 feet. when i checked with planning they assured me it was 65 feet. the whole district is 65 feet. did they rezion it and i didn't -- rezone it? two, the style is out of character with the neighborhood. build a building on the corner out of the closet is.

make it more like the other buildings. after we finished re-zoning, we didn't have to object to other buildings because the planning staff did an excellent job of making them compatible with style and materials with the ones there. the corner believes were large 65 feet maybe then set back at the top. this district is a historic neighborhood, it is north of the prior line neighborhood which is in your documentation, in your filings shows this is considered to be very important. all similar buildings, very little disruption, should be studied to be a historic building. what has happened lately. well, the commission approved something that looks like a las vegas hotel on larkin street. then thanks to middle polk neighbors intervention you built this thing over on vanness and

clay in the middle of the vanness plan corridor, which has a particular style that is supposed to be preserving. this is too big. most of all, right on the historic cable car are two little locks perfect for a park. there was no sense talking to david chew about this. one was a bank lot used for parking behind here. the other one right next to it was just an abandoned plays with chain link until she wanted a commercial thing there. i want a park there. no parking is perfect. i will tell you why we don't have parking. we have traffic analysis data by a traffic annualli analyst. there was a project on top of the hill. perfect. you can do this. >> next speaker, please.

>> good afternoon. i am a resident of russian hill. i just wanted to make a case for the preservation of that particular building at polk and california. you know, that particular area that has become more than just a store. it is a really treasured community hotspot, i would say, serving all demographics and all economic groups. it is far from just a store. i feeling that its loss will diminish the neighborhood greatly, and i feel i am speaking for countless others. actually, after i learned that there would only benign low income and the rest high income or market rate, i feel that, you know, the disparity everyone is

talking about between the poor and the wealthy would just become ever more pronounced, and i think these are two cherished stores and buildings. i am urging you not to tear them down and to leave them as a great community resource and a place where people congregate and can buy reasonably priced clothing and other things in a welcoming environment. thank you so much. >> next speaker, please. >> i am dana. i live a few blocks away. i support this project. we are in a massive housing shortage and we need all the housing we can get. this is what we need to be doing. it has a lot of units. we need them.

thank you. >> thank you. anyone else like to comment on this item? sir, you have already spoken. everyone gets the same amount of time. anyone else from the public? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore. >> it happens to be my neighborhood. i wanted to speak to it. this project has been around for quite a few years. it is in the third generation of design, and i have always been hearing neighbors' concerns and seen the buildings being shaped. once unsuccessfully. a new architect was chosen. next was a building okay but not quite there. what we have now is a building for me personally meets all

possible expectations. it is taller but we need to remind ourselves it is the stage density bonus to allow two additional floors above the permitted height. that makes it slightly different, however, the sensitivity by which this building finds itself on that corner makes up for any possible impact of height because in the worst case just to kind of be the bogeyman it could have been a massive block of solid unmodulated mass that we would have to put up with that. we wouldn't have had abilities to challenge it. that is unfortunately -- that is what the state density bonus requires us to consider. we are getting a building that fits both frontages, california as well as polk and deals with a

different adjacencies on polk street victorian next to it, creating of extra lot, stepping back of height of the front of polk street. it convinces me this is the right building. i would like to comment and perhaps my perspective is a little bit different. i believe in the polk street area all contemporary new buildings are exceptionally well-done. i find them distinguishing themselves from the sameness factor of what i see in many other neighborhoods. i am very grateful for it. i do believe with good quality architecture the older buildings next to newer buildings makes it a fun and interesting place. i see a lot of activity in the mid block of polk street

bringing tourists and ourselves walking back and forth realizing and frequenting small and local retail and this contributed to making it an exciting place. aside from other positive attributes of the project including a good documentation of ideas, i am in support of this project. >> commissioner diamond. >> i am very much in support of the project. it provides desperately needed housing and fits in well. they are asking for waiver of 1e ground floor. we had a case two weeks ago where it was a house in the sunset three stories above commercial on the ground floor and we were trying to figure out how to lower the overall height. we wanted to lower the ground

floor below 14 feet and staff said not possible. how can we do it here when we couldn't do it in that case? >> this is one of the incentives that they are seeking under the state density bonus law. there has to be basically a financial hardship where complying with that regulation would prohibit the project from constructing that same number of units. as mentioned by the project team, it is due to the sloping along california because the storefronts on polk street achieve well in excess of 14 feet. it is only the storefronts on california in order to keep the slab at that second floor at a consistent height and keep the overall building below the high rise construction thresholds that is where the financial savings come. the storefronts fall just under

14 feet in that area. >> i totally get why you are lowering it below 14 feet here and you created the financial hard ship documentation. i am questioning why we couldn't do it in the case before. >> it is to offset the cost of providing the on site affordable i don'units is why they do it h. >> it sounded like a building code rather than planning code regulation. >> it is planning code. >> you have the ability to waive it. >> it iit isiit is incentive, n. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks for your comments. yes, this is a state density program and so we are limited in some things we consider around

this, but i think this is a well designed building in the right location. one thing that was brought up by many community members which i thought of when i first saw the project it is going to happen to the closet. thinking about this retail corridor in general that has had some challenges, i am curious if you would speak to the ground floor and the programming and how it will blend into the surrounding community. >> first off, not to beg the issue. there is another out of the closet. there are two locations at least. >> you know that is not the point. >> but the actually out of the closet is a little unusual. it is quite a large space.

the general, i think, direction we get and the best for the neighborhood serving retail is to make smaller spaces. now, i am going to say flexibility is the name of the game. we did a space like this near hayes, and it was 5,000 square feet. the restaurant said they wanted the whole space. if it is larger than 3,000 feet you have got to get a conditional use permit. he said i will take 2999 square feet. that is how the decisions get made. in all of the other spaces it ended up 11-foot wide, 12-foot wide. you get one 3,000-foot. flexibility is it. i think that there is tremendous stress on retail right now, and i don't think we should give up on it because there is a lot of

things that should happen at the ground level, community serving spaces is one of them. >> i think for the benefit of the public who have voiced concerns about a meeting space they come together that is affordable and accessible to all members of the community. we talk about retail space and how they are programmed. having an eye towards flexibility and the space and making sure there is a use in mixes as you consider who ends up in those spaces that kind of taylors to the many issues that were brought up today as something i hope you will keep in mind. >> we are working on some larger shopping areas right now. they say in five years retail changes every five years. san francisco you have those businesses right across the street. oyster depot and it is like you can't go there because you have to wait too long eventhough it

is great. the typical thing is i came here in the 1970s. how many people remember the palms on polk street? i was trying to figure out where it was. there is such change and be what is great about the pedestrian areas they accommodate the retail because of the flexibility and incremental area they accommodate the change really well, probably better than the shopping malls. all we can do is design for flexibility. it makes the building be a-frame. >> we can only plan for the future. >> thanks. >> commissioner moore. >> it was going too far astray. theresy a story about the merchants.

when the bookstore was displaced and the merchantses came together to find the bookstore, another vacant place two doors up. there was a cohesiveness on bowling street so green apple would reach out. there are vacancies to relocate and work together with merchants. where there is a will there is a way. if the community supports this retailer, i assume there are other vacancies. i make a motion to approve. >> second. >> seeing nothing further, there is a motion seconded to approve this matter with conditions. commissioner diamond. >> aye. (roll call). >> so moved. that passes unanimously 6-0.

14. 968 valencia street conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon, commissioners, planning department staff. the item before you is request for conditional use authorization pursuant to 303, 303.1 and 7620 establish a retail sales and use in the transit zoning district and 50 height and bulk district. it is a contributor the liberty district under article 10. it would authorize a 1590 square foot retail use doing business as huff in the three story mixed use building at the corner of

valencia and liberty. it is a retailer for men and women founded in 2002. this is the 13th store world wide. it will include a new separate signage. no other modifications are proposed nor is any expansion of the existing building. the subject space was previously occupied by a retailer of street wear clothing vacant since january 2019. there are approximately 47 ground floor commercial storefronts. no forge laretailers are established with conditional use authorization. two businesses, women's clothing and limited restaurant mixed have increased number of locations since they were established within the 300-foot radius. both would qualify as formula

retail. taking into account these two retailers there is a retail concentration of 4% in the 300-foot radius. it would increase concentration of retail uses in the 300-foot vicinity to 6%. the project sponsor conducted preapplication as well as additional outreach with community groups. the department has received 7 letters of support and one letter in opposition including letters of support from the merchants association and mission merchants neighborhood groups. the sponsor submitted a petition with 58 individuals in support. it centers around the huff founding with frequent founder's contribution to the city. they support out the compatibilities of those along the existing merchants. they say it would fill the

stores on valencia street. opposition is the general street corridor. department received an additional letter of support after the packets published which was transmitted but i have copies if you would like to reference them. department finds the project is on balance consistent with the intent of the ntz zoning district and the liberty hill district and projects. it will provide retail use with rooteds to the surrounding neighborhood with the vacant storefront occupied by a similar street wary taylor. tail -- wear for retailer. it is compatible and not detrimentaltodetrimental for adt properties.

we are here to answer questions you may have. >> thank you. project sponsor. >> . >> president of the mission merchants association. when i was asked by huff to help with their community outreach, i asked what kind of business they had. they said skateboard and apparel. might be a conflict of interest because benny gold is a member of the merchants association with a fine business on 16th street and moved to valencia street. he started with huff, one of the designers. he went off on his own and you will hear that huff left san francisco for a while, and now benny decided to go into advertising. he is good in designing. he has gone to a new career and left the space open. basically we are replacing a

skateboard apparel shop with one. i have never had one before in 20 years. the outreach is overwhelmingly supportive. we have a wonderful block and if you can see the building itself, this is one of the gyms. this is the liberty hill historic district. they are not going to change the character of the district, just fit in to the location. it is a beautiful fit. with that i would like to introduce keith murray, who is the director of marketing from huff. >> good afternoon. thank you for your time. i am keith murray. i am a native of san francisco working with the huff brand for 15 plus years helping build and grow it. to give you background.

keith huff was a professional skateboarder, lived in new york, la, san francisco. started in 2002 in a small store on sutter, following a second store in hayes valley in early 2000. during the time in the city and to the present day, we continue to work the skateboard association which helped us enable to create the bridge soma skate park. we work closely with youth organizations promoting active lifestyles and support many functions in san francisco promoting youth welfare. in 2009 we were forced to close stores in san francisco. since then we re-emerged from the difficult days and rebuilt the brand. it is not in our interest or

plan to become a chain store. san francisco will be the third store in the u.s. it is always our intent to return to the city where it started about and support locals and continue to share our story. we are part of the san francisco community for two decades and want to be a part of the community for years to come. that begins with opening a new chapter of the story in the city we consider our second home. your consideration would be most appreciated. thank you for your time. >> thank you. we are now going to open up to public comment. would anyone like to comment on this item? seeing none. public comment is closed. i guess i will start off with i used to be a huge skateboarder and snowboarder.

it hurts less falling in snow. la and san francisco are the best hubs. san francisco is best because of the hill also. i was fortunate to attend the movie premier last night at the independent be theater with a bunch of skateboarders. the house was packed and it gave me warn fuzzy feelings. they are taking kids off the street and getting kids out of trouble and giving them places to skate where people would do other stuff. i think it is underrated and growing part of the city and i am in full support today. >> commissioner moore. >> i am in full support. we have always been supportive of homegrown businesses. i think it is great that san francisco has a skateboard store that has 13 stores worldwide

while we only have three in united states. i am in full support and hope that you will be successful. >> commissioner diamond. >> move to approve. >> second. >> seeing nugfurther there is a motion seconded to approve with conditions. (roll call). so moved that passes unanimously 6-0. >> that places us under discretionary review. 15 at 2001 chestnut street. discretionary review. >> hello, good afternoon. >> we will hear from staff first. >> good evening, commissioners, elizabeth northwest team leader. this is public request for

discretionary review of building permit application which proposes to add nighttime use to an existing restaurant called the dorian. nighttime entertainment would allow two seven minute shows every saturday and live music for private events. the d.r. requester victoria of f 2010 chestnut is concerned about potential noise from the addition of second floor bar and shows and events. she proposes denying the bar. the commission should note the second floor bar is not part of the subject building permit. it is pre-existing and it is already legally and present on the second floor based on permit research and health permits and other abc licenses. to date the department received two letters in opposition and

petition with 28 signatures in support of the project. department has not found evidence to support the nighttime entertainment use would be a nuisance to nearby residents. as part of the corridor on chestnut the proposed use should not have a detrimental impact in light of the short duration for the proposed cabaret and it should be infrequent. the department does not have any extraordinary circumstance with the proposed project and recommends no discretionary review and approve the project as proposed. this concludes my presentation. >> we have two d.r. requesters. >> only one. >> we will hear from the d.r. requester first.

>> i am vicky. i am the one making the trouble. i just want to point out, first, that th the application says a permit to be issued for cabaret performances and other live music within a nc2 commercial small scale location. it doesn't say anything in that about limiting it. that causes me worry. i don't know when they have -- are you representing them? anyway, i am indeed a tenant across the street, and i can tell you that the noise is unbearable. on friday and saturday night, it

is -- i have a sound machine, earplugs, i have blackouts curtains and i can still hear it. my apartment is in back of my living room off the street. for them to say that it is not loud, they are not telling the truth. it is loud. everybody who lives in that area understands that. i have a number of people here who also agree that is true and are living with it currently. we are very concerned this is going to enlarge the menace that we are exposed to. there are about 200 units within a several hundred foot, probably 300-foot area and we figure about 300 people affected by

this. we are concerned that it will become impossible to continue living there. i will tell you that a lot of those people are in rent controlled apartments because we are all old, but if we have to move because we can't live with the sound any more, we are not going to be able to stay in the city. we will be like everybody else and will have to bail out. one other thing that was of concern to us. there is a sanitation problem. my doorway is right across the street from the dorian, and every weekend you can count on the fact there will be feces, urine and vomit on the front step. our building manager

automatically cleans on saturday and sunday morning. we don't need this. this area has always been a lovely area to live in. now it is becomin becoming icky. we are concerned about the fact for corporate events they would bring in tour buses. it is limited parking already. that would add a great deal of pollution and also noise. the noise from the buses, not from the bar. they have not been very good neighbors. they don't use sound curtains. they don't keep their doors and windows closed when they have loud music playing, and we had a situation last summer where they actually installed outdoor

speakers on the sidewalk near where their tables are and they didn't have permission to do so. had i not gone over, i am sure they would have continued to use them. anyway, i would like to ask you all to please deny this. we don't need any more stress added to the area. >> we will take testimony on anyone in support of the d.r. requester. if anyone supports the lady with the claim, now is your time to speak. >> you are going to come back and speak again. now the people if they are supporting you will address us now. >> i support the d.r. request.

i am a neighbor. i am a resident directly behind the property. we have had an awful lot of complaints. every resident on the west side of buchanan has had noise complaints. they run a business also called crossroads entertainment, which is a party promoter. we are concerned that in location at the dorian because there is no restriction on the amount of corporate events. we could end up with any number of events for live music in that location run by crossroad nightlife. we could have performances there 365 days per year. there needs to be conditions put down on what is going to be done for this place of entertainment.

i agree with the d.r. requester that the place of entertainment permit, we should be taking baby steps there. what happened to limited live performance and run for a few months to see how they do it. there are already problems. we have experienced problems at another facility. there has been problems with mrn 11th street ending in some legal disputes between neighbors and the venue. please take into consideration those facts and you evaluate and please put down some conditions. i think both those gentleman are good people and have good intentions. the disconnect appears they are not at the restaurants at night and the gms are. please proceed with caution.

>> anyone else in support of d.r. requester, come address us now. >> kathleen, come on up. >> good evening. thank you for listening to us. i lived in the marina for the last 32 years. i live across the street from the dorian. i have seen numerous businesses come and go. we started out with original joe's two and since then we have got through a lot of them. some good neighbors. we want a good business to succeed. don't get us wrong. there are problems when it comes to noise pollution and problems with people coming out at midnight and 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning, and they are not quiet. we'll tell the children indoor

voice please. but it is yelling at one another all night and drinking. when they come out they are allowed. it is the middle of night, thursday, friday, saturday. people have to go to work the next day. it is difficult. my neighbor who asked me to read her letter has been there 25 years. she is seeing the same things. when we talk about coming out in the morning and seeing debris and urine and vomit and you are standing there waiting for the 30, and not an hour later you have mother and children coming buy-in strollers. it is a very busy area. there is nothing quiet about chestnut and fillmore. this is a disruption when they come out at us. we are very concerned about cabarets and since there is not a limit on how many of these

events they could have, we don't know what is going to happen. tonight was the first i have heard they are going to have seven minute cabarets. i am not sure what that means and what that is going to do. i can tell you the noise pollution is real and our concerns are very much in terms of the neighborhood that we have. it -- it has changed. we used to be an older neighborhood and a lot of yuppies. we have young family was and it is lovely. it is difficult for parents with children to wander around at night and have this happening in the neighborhood. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> you can go for one support or

opposition. >> can i suggest a solution? >> i am not telling you what to suggest. you can speak now or with the project sponsor, one or the other. go ahead. >> i will go ahead. i i am not either. here is my letter. there is my card, too. when i heard about this, i said let's see if they can duke it out. neither party even talk to each other. on saturday i was at the bus, and i was accosted from neighbors from the other building saying what are you going to do about this? i says wait a minute i thought they were settling it. i went to the dorian and asked to speak to jeff who is behind me. he never got the message. that may be the problem.

i have a solution. it is an association we tried to let the parties settle the issue among themselves. over the weekend we found out that the issue for deeper. we want quality of life and economic vitality. over the weekend be we had more complaints about the application, interactions with the neighbors and neighboring merchants. we do not want chestnut street to have the same problems that the neighbors have at the dorian at the palm house and sister restaurant. we want everyone to get along and respect each other. we request six weeks continuance for the application to mediate the issues concerning the application and come up with a viable solution. if you choose to not allow us to settle this and mediate and approve the application for

entertainment, it will be appealed. if this application is approved we wish for the following conditions to be applied to the permit. live entertainment to stop at 10:00 p.m. sunday through thursday. we have families in the neighborhood as testified. the entertainment stop midnight at thursday, friday, saturday. if they behave we extend. the heavy curtains on the chestnut street side and in front of the window during the entertainments live music. individuals patrolling the sides of the building during the event and 30 minutes after to just to keep people moving and quite. we have done this before in other restaurants without problems. a bouncer at the door to keep noise at minimum. liaison with the neighbors and member of our organization that they will be back up liaison when the liaison is not on duty.

we must be inforged who they are. -- be informed who they are. not anyone except workers in the back rally at all times and the alley cleaned at all times. no retribution on either side. i think this is the best i can do. thank you. >> anyone else wish to speak in support of the d.r. requester? seeing none. project sponsor, you are up. >> i am jeffrey davis. i am the director of operations for serious leisure and the current interim general manager for dorian and neighbor of the dorian. i live across the street as well. i am all in the mix there. how this got started is we produced a cabaret show, two performs on saturday nights for five minutes each song and that was it. we needed a permit.

we applied for the permit. we did all of what we needed to do to get the permit and we actually held happy hours for the neighbors to hear any issues they had, anything like that. nothing came. one person come and supported it. we thought everything was going how it was supposed to go. then weep got the appeal for the dr. the dr said we were building another bar. we are not building another bar. we are trying to get an entertainment permit to do cabaret. we are a restaurant first, not a nightclub. busy bar on the weekends friday and saturday nights. we are not the only bar in the neighborhood. across the street is the horseshoe and five or six other restaurants down the street. we are the