>> good morning, everyone. welcome to the march 12, 2020, regular meeting of the public safety and

neighborhood services committee. i'm supervisor mandelman. our clerk is john carroll, and i want to thank s.f. gov. tv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> yes. please silence all electronic devices. your completed speaker cards and documents as part of the file will be submitted today as to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the march 21st, 2020, board of supervisors agenda, unless other stated. and related to the coronavirus disease, we are asking all attend decees of this meeting to maintain at least four feet between themselves and others, regularly wash your hands for 20 seconds at a time, and try to avoid touching high-volume services as much as possible. >> thank you for that, mr. clerk. for reasons related to the

current public health crisis, we are likely to continue items 3 and 4. so if anyone is here for those, you should be aware of that. so mr. clerk, can you please call the first item. >> item 1is a hearing to consider that the issuance of a type 57 special on-sale beer and wine liquor license to the owners association, doing business as the four seasons private residences, will serve the public convenience or necessity of the city and county. >> thank you. >> good morning members of the board. you have before you p.c.m. for 607 mission, residence owner association. they have applied for a type 57 license, and if approved, it should allow them to sell special on-sale general.

there are zero protests, zero items of support. they're located on plot 212, consider a high-crime area, and a high saturation area. the southern station has no opposition, and a.l.u. recommendation is to approve the license without recommending any new conditions. >> chairman: great, thank you. is the applicant here, or a representative? >> yes. good morning. i'm beth hopalofia, representing the applicant. we understand that the supervisor's office has requested a continuance of this item and would like to meet with the project sponsor. so we're making plans to do that prior to the next meeting date. >> chairman: fantastic. thank you. if there are no comments or questions, we'll open this up for public comment. are there any members of the public who would like to testify on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. as the applicant's

representative said, supervisor haney has requested with continue this item to allow additional time for his office and the applicant to meet. we can continue this item to the march 26th regular meeting and still not go past our 90-day period during which we're trying to make action. i will move we continue this to the march 26th regular meeting. we can take that without objection. mr. clerk, please call the next item? >> item 2 is the hearing to consider that the transfer of a type 48 on-sale liquor license to buzz works incorporated, at 365 11th street will serve the convenience and necessity of the city and county. >> you have before you p.c.m. for buzz works. if approved, this would allow them to operate an

on-sale. there are zero letters of protest. i understand there are letters of support. they are located on plot 242, considered a high crime area. on census track 1082, considered a high saturation. and a.l.u. recommendation is to approve this license without any new conditions. >> chairman: great. thank you. is the applicant here? >> members of the board, distinguished chair, i'm ladd coupe, and i'm the owner and operator of buzz works. i've been in san francisco and owning a variety of nightclubs and restaurants during the last 30 years. i own "butter," a legacy venue, that has been there for quite a while. i opened up buzz works about four years ago. and we've had seamless integration and care-free operations. we've been operating as a type 42, which is 21 and up, craft beer sports bar.

the only thing that this new application will allow us to do is add a line of craft spirits, in addition to our craft beer offerings, which are the widest variety in the city of san francisco. we look to complement our existing operations, which won't change because we'll still be a 21 and up drinking place. there is really no operational changes needed, other than having an additional line of product. otherwise, you know, we appreciate your support. and we have a lot of support from our neighborhood, from all of the residents. and people who have been patronizing and supporting our operations and our venue for quite some time. and we look forward to moving forward and having a great relationship with san francisco and the a.l.u., and the police department and fire department, as we always have. thank you. >> chairman: thank you. are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed.

colleagues, my understanding is that supervisor haney is supportive of this application. and i don't see any reason not to make a motion -- or not to therefore direct our clerk to prepare a resolution, finding that this transfer will meet public convenience and necessity, and i will move to forward that resolution to the full board with positive recommendation, and we can take that without objection. great. mr. clerk, please call our next item. >> item 3is an ordinance amending the health code to require the director of health to adopt minimum and healthy standards in adult sex venues, but prohibiting them from adopting -- or regulate doors or mandate unlocked doors in areas where sexual activity may occur. >> chairman: colleagues, as i indicated earlier,

although i am eager to have this item acted on by the full board, as part of the city's response to covid-19, president yee has requested that board members postpone hearings that have large turnouts. so i'm going to be moving to continue this item to a future meeting, on a date to be determined, by the call of the chair. we do need to take public comment on this. are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. and so i will move that we continue this call of the chair. we can take that without objection. thank you, colleagues. mr. clerk, please call our next item. >> agenda item 4 is a hearing to discuss the affects of on--demand

delivery and delivery companies on small businesses. >> chairman: similarly, this is an extremely important topic, but in light of the current crisis, and president yee's direction to postpone non-essential legislation are hearings with large public turnout, i'm going to, after taking public comment, move to continue this to the call of the chair. are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? so i'll just -- rules in public comment are we allow you two minutes. please state your first and last name. if you have prepared written statements, you're encouraged to leave a copy with the clerk. no applause ar or booing is allowed. >> i will ad lib a small part of public comment that i feel it is a wonderful topic for you guys to bring up as a member of small business,

and seeing the impact of the delivery services have had on myself and neighboring businesses and throughout the city. i think it is time that the city does take some sort of steps to regulate the viral spread of this and its impact. i mean, it's really killing small restaurants and bars and stuff. and it's hurting our bottom lines. they've got no overhead the way we do, and most of them use tactics to take advantage of the businesses that they serve. and it really needs to be really addressed. thank you. >> chairman: thank you. are there any other members -- if there are members of the public that would like to speak on this item, if folks could line up on the far side of the chamber. >> hi. i heard what you said about the reasons for postponing it, and i thought that might happen

today, but i rearranged my whole week to be here today, and i called city hall to find out if this meeting was happening specifically for this item. i'm trying to figure out how in the future to make sure -- i have to get coverage for people at home, so how do i know if an item and the agenda is actually going to be heard, or if it is not, before i come to city hall. is there a way for me to check that before i get here? >> chairman: i answer that -- or try to attempt to answer that after public comment is over. >> thank you very much. >> chairman: are there any other members of the public? you wanted to say the same thing? >> i'm victor eskovito, and we own two restaurants and a food truck. really, this is really affecting us, where location means nothing anymore. and so there is -- it's a real problem. and it could work. we could make it work, and i think it should be something that we should really address because it

is going to put people out of business, and it is really going to change. if you want to attract good chefs to san francisco, they have to start out with a small business and then maybe get hired with bigger restaurants. the whole dynamic of the san francisco culinary culture is going to suffer if this is not really just regulated, and it has to happen. so it would be great to have it really taken seriously. >> chairman: thank you. are there any other members of the public who would like to speak on this item before i close public comment. public comment is now closed. so this is an extraordinary circumstance that we're in. i would say one way to check on whether a hearing is happening is to call the office of the principle sponsor. in the case of on-demand delivery, perhaps supervisor safai or peskin -- ts

office wouldn't necessarily have known these were going to be continued. >> mr. chair, if we do know, we can pass on this information or we can provide more direct contact information of someone who works in the office of the sponsoring supervisor to provide the information. my phone number is also on the front of our agenda. 415-554-4445, and interested constituents can contact me directly from that phone number. >> chairman: thank you, mr. clerk. and the other thing i would say is i would, now for the duration of however long this lasts, i think it is worth, particularly if the agenda item looks like it might be non-essential or something that could be deferred until later, it's worth checking before coming down here because we are trying to significantly limit members of the public congregating in any of

these rooms and potentially spreading covid-19. and, yes, chair ste stephanie? >> thank you, chair manhandlmandelman. if you can't come to the next hearing, you can e-mail us and the clerk and let us know your story and it can be added to the file. i want you to know your voice will be heard no matter what, if you can't make the next hearing date. there are other ways to communicate. i feel this is such an important topic. i would like to be added as a co-sponsor to the hearing, and just know your voice can still be heard if you can't make the next hearing. >> thank you. and i would just like to apologize to the folks who did come down and your voice has been heard, but i hope you'll be able to come to this when it does eventually happen, when we are on the other side of the curve.

mr. clerk, are there any other items before us today? >> you've made a motion to call the chair -- >> chairman: i have made a motion. we'll take that without objection. thank you. >> there is no further business. >> chairman: there is no further business, so we're adjourned. thank you. >> thursday, march 5, 2020. i would like to remind members of the public to silence your mobile devices that may sound off. when speaking before the commission, state your name for the record. i would like to take roll call

at this time. [roll call] commission richards has -- first under your, on your agenda, is consideration of i'ms proposed for continuance. item 1, case 2019-001455cua, 1750 wawona street, conditional use authorization proposed for continuance. item 2, 2019-003900drp, 1526 masonic avenue proposed for continuance. item 3, 2019-017837prj proposed for indefinite continuance, and item 4, 2015-4109, 33 12th

street has been withdrawn. item 12, the hazardous materials management procedures informational presentation is proposed for continuance to march 19, 2020. items 13a and b for case numbers 201913cuavar proposed for continuance to april 30, 2020. under your discretionary review calendar, items 15a and b, case numbers 2825drp at 780 kansas street has been withdrawn. and the variance component of that project is being proposed for continuance to march 25 to the zoning administrators variance hearing agenda. i have no other items proposed for continuance. i did have one speaker card from mr. dr atler on item 13a if he

wishes -- no, he does not wish to speak to the continuance. so that is all i have. >> would anyone else like to publicly comment on the items proposed for continuance? come on up. >> ryan patterson representing the project sponsor for items 13a and b. this is a cu for section 317. we are, it's a section 317cu trying to preserve an existing unit that was reconfigured with permits about 15 years ago. this unit is tenant-occupied, and while we have recently received concerns from planning, we would like to work with planning staff to try to resolve those and to support a continuance, request a continuance to april 30 to do that. thank you very much. >> commissioner moore. >> i'm sorry, so one more time. anyone else for public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore.

>> move to continue items as indicated in addition with item 12, 13, 15, with dates in the record. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion to continue items as proposed then. [roll call vote] so moved, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. if the zoning administrator could opine on items 13b and 15b. >> sure. item 13b, variance will be continued to april 30, joint hearing of planning commission, and item 15b will be continued to the regular variance hearing on march 25. >> thank you. commissioners, that will place us under your consent calendar. all matters listed here under constitute a consent calendar

are considered to be routine by the planning commission and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote of the commission. there will be no separate discussion of the items unless a member of the commission the public or staff so requests in which event the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing. 49 missouri street and item 6, case 022530cua, 4 west portal avenue, conditional use authorization. i have no speaker cards. would any members of the public like to comment on the consent calendar? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner johnson. >> move to approve items 5 and 6 with conditions. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion to approve items 5 and 6 under your consent calendar, [roll call vote]

so moved, that motion passes unanimously 6-0 placing us under commission matters, item 7, consideration of adoption draft minutes for february 20, 2020. i have no speaker cards. would anyone from the public like to comment on the draft minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner diamond. >> second. >> on that motion to adopt the minutes for february 20, [roll call vote] so moved, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. item 8, commission comments and questions. seeing none, commissioners, department matters. >> commissioner moore. >> i would like to thank commissioner richards for his

service. and i will miss him as a colleague and an effective person being on this commission with us. thank you, commissioner richards. >> if there are no other comments, we can move onto department matters, item 9, director's announcements. >> commissioners, good afternoon. with the department staff here in a unique week as we bid farewell to director ram and await director hilli say. -- director hillis. >> item 10, review of past events at the board of supervisors, board of appeals and historic preservation commission did not meet yesterday >> this week's land use committee heard the in length occupancy. the ilo ordinance proposes to regulate occupancies and dwelling units between 30 and 365 days.

you heard this item twice, back on january 30 when you voted to recommend approval with modifications. those modifications include enacting interim controls on new i.l.o.s, collecting data on the scale and clarifying admin amendments for nonprofit organizations. monday was the second time the ordinance was heard at the land use committee. this week at the beginning of the hearing, supervisor peskin announced another continuance to give him time to meet with representatives and advocates. he invited planning staff to co. staff expressed concerns over the unanswered questions in the ordinance. supervisor peskin moved to continue the hearing to march 9. the ordinance that would amenity bay windows and horizontal projections passed it's first read.

the appeal for the environmental termination of 1581 howard street was continued to april 14. that's all i have for you today. >> thanks. >> seeing no question, we can move onto general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. i have two speaker cards. [calling names] >> i have three minutes, please, sir? thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. i second vice president moore's comments about commissioner richards, and i totally agree with them. anyway, i looked on your website for roof deck policy and you can't find it there on the

website. and so i think the official roof deck policy installed since 2018. so something last spring that was tried but i don't think that went ahead. and i have a handout but i can't find that on the website. so i think that roof decks should be defined as the following: open space on the uppermost area of a structure requiring a stair penthouse or hatch for access. i think the plans often conflate this type of roof deck with the access required at the top with a roof deck that is off living space, created by setbacks that reduce the mass, particularly setbacks overlooking rear yards, and i told these should be called terraces because that matches the definition in the dictionary. roof decks that require stair penthouses or a hatch should not be permitted on smaller projects if the open space requirement can be met through preservation of natural carbon-capturing rear

yards. here are the negative issues as i see them with roof decks that require a stair penthouse or a hatch. they add hundreds of thousands of dollars to construction cost and sales price of one to three-unit buildings and that decreases relative affordability. they increase the mass. i mean even if you have the glass, when you see them, it's mass, and people put couches from restoration hardware up there, and that makes mass. i think they're also used for the marketing of the projects by capturing views and my favorite mantra is no one entitled to a view. i don't think they should be up there for that reason. and finally, they're really not viable in a windy, foggy city like san francisco. so that's my comment on that. and here's the 150 words for the minutes. thank you all very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> can i get the overhead, please? great. commissioners, my name is joe butler. i'm an architect here any city. i'm here about 526 lombard street which is on your agenda for next week. only recently hired by aquaintances of 20 years who live near the project but were traveling during the period of 311 notice. several things are missing. and several things are incorrect in the application that was submitted by the project sponsor and their architect, second architect on the job. first on the permit application, you can see that the new construction, and i'm talking about the rear building which will be wholly new construction on a required year yard for which variances will be sought,

you can see that a site survey done by a civil engineer as required, we don't have a site survey. second, it fronts on two streets or more precisely, a street and an ally, at the back of the property is fielding street. the back of the property is fielding street, at the front is lombard street and if one reads the code carefully you have to use the street to measure. so in the back, they are reducing the required rear yard by adding a new building where there's currently lawn. and it's at least 34 feet high from grade. but that's not where we measured. we measured from the top of the curb, at the midpoint of the two on the up and the low ends of the lot, on its main frontage. also when we reduce the rear

yard, the last 30 feet, the last 10 feet of the building is supposed to be reduced to 30 feet in height. so that we don't have a big, shady yard. in this case, there is no such setback, but we think two things. one that 261 should apply, and the sun point should be observed. you can see what happens to the third floor. there we go. if, however, the project sponsor were to drop that to 30 feet above grade or the midpoint of the top of the curb, maybe four or five feet as i've shown here, the sun plane wouldn't interfere with the 30' height that's required for the last 10 feet of averaging. you go down a longer list. here's the planning department submittal guidelines which call for the site survey.

here's the fee schedule. this one is rich. the first architect put $300,000 for a 3800 square foot new house. it's really over a million. that means that the planning department has lost down on about $12,000 in fees. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, president koppel and members of the planning commission. my name is kathleen cortney. russian hill community association. two years ago, the russian hill community association sent a letter of support for the reappointment of rich hillis as a commissioner sitting on the planning commission at that time we noted that there were a couple of things that we disagreed with the commissioner about, but we appreciated his comments. now, you more than anyone else knows that there's a difference

between the skill set required of a planning commissioner and a skill set required of a planning director. you're also well aware of the concerns many community members have expressed about the appointment. but more than this, you're complicit in the decision of the reappointment or the appointment of rich hillis as planning commissioner, because you are the commission that recommended reviewed applicants, that gutted them, that looked at the minimum requirements and recommended the recommended names to the mayor. so i call to your attention, and i urge you, and i really request that you be aware of your responsibility, because starting now, your responsibility extends beyond the idea of simply looking at what comes before you

at the planning commission. your responsibility also is to the planning department. it is up to you now to make sure that the qualifications, the protocols, the mentoring, the education of our planners is really disciplined and professional, because if we don't have a professional architect or urban planner in charge of the planning department, may i respectfully request that that responsibility now falls to you. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, everyone. my name is anna and i'm a resident and artist at 221 11 street, also known as the

dovetail community. at dovetail we house artists and their workspaces at affordable rates. we are being threatened with eviction despite working with the landlord in good faith to legalize our space. we need the planning department to accept our application for conditional use of our space under the act. we are one of the last communities in san francisco of offering space for movement arts, visual arts, live workspaces at below market rate. as a dancer and movement artist personally dovetail represents to me a haven. the availability of affordable indoor practice spaces and the possibility of hosting creative community gatherings are rarities in san francisco. spaces like dovetail make it possible for me and many others like me to pursue the arts and foster strong communities around the arts. we want to be in good graces with the neighbors and landlord. we support the success of the restaurant downstairs from us in many ways like encouraging the

patronization, being conscious of noise, especially during their business hours, and offering other forms of assistance throughout the years. sadly, the landlord has blocked two times our notarized permit request and trying to evict us on the platform that we are not doing the work. city ordinance requires this to proceed and obligated to provide code-compliant housing. planning allowed the withdrawal of conditional use application by the property owner. the legislation which you read into the last meeting is clear, the owner should not have a discussion to withdraw legally filed conditional use application. instead they are required to bring the building into compliance with residential code and legalize the space. please help protect dovetail and the artists of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is brittney, and i'm also a tenant at 221 first

street. i'm a mental health counselor. we work with people struggling with housing and i'm also a student in the urban studies and planning program at s.f. state with a focus on homelessness and affordable housing. the dovetail community means a lot to me as it provides a space for me to live affordbly as i'm working and going to school. it is also a place for hosting activism events around topics like affordable housing and encouraging people to participant politically such as voting parties to inform people about ballot measures. it is critical to me to maintain currently-existing affordable housing in the city so students and social workers like myself and avarices can live, work and study in a home that offers secure and affordable housing and encourages participation in the greater community. this is our home, and it would mean a tremendous amount if you would support the planning

department to accept our conditional use permit as it is required by the act and your applications that we can move forward in the legalization process to become residents. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else? come on up. >> good afternoon, president koppel, fellow commissioners. with no neighborhood counsel and san francisco coalition. i'm here to echo what ms. cortney brought to your attention and our basically total surprise from the outcome of who you recommended as part of the roster for the planning director. we have brought up issues in terms of mr. hillis' qualifications, that's not new. but one thing we have not talked enough about is his outlook on what neighborhoods are supposed to be transformed in light of all this push for denseification. we really look to you to make

sure that something that is going to come out of the planning department that most likely is going to reflect that is going to be equitable and just. as an example, i know that director hillis used to often time bring up the residential expansion threshold and would oftentimes bring up that maybe we should bring it back. as some of the speakers here mentioned, that program was kneecapped, guilty as charged, i was one of those people that worked very hard to make sure it was kneecapped. the reason it was kneecapped was because it was unjust. you cannot go and up zone -- well, up zone in a sense, of the square footage of the entire city of san francisco to come up with a floor area ratio that is virtually covering maybe 5% of san francisco would live up to that. so that's an example that we are

looking to you to look into these programs that are going to be coming out of the planning department and look into you to make sure we are not going to have back door up zoning. we've already had front door up zoning thanks to assemblymember phil ting and his two adus per lot. we would appreciate it if you look into the programs and side with us, the residents of the city of san francisco, who need to have a just program, fair planning. that's what we're asking you. thank you so much. >> thank you. anyone else for general public comment? seeing none, general public comment is closed. >> there are no questions, we can move onto your regular calendar for item 11, 49 south van ness avenue, permit center project informational presentation. >> hi.

my name is melissa white how is. i'm the permit center director in the city administrate's office, and i'm excited to address the commission today. i'm probably going to present for somewhere between ten and 15 minutes and i'm hoping there's time for questions at the end. before i i've in, i wanted to say thank you to all the planning department, in particular, i really would like to thank every individual there but in the sake of time i want to thank liz watty and the whole core pick team for how wonderful they've been since i've been in this job for a little over a year. i want to thank jonas and this commission for helping us have christine silva to support electronic plan review. i'm going to talk about how integral she has been to this process. i hope while you are hearing my presentation, you are taking pride because we could not be doing this without your support of having christine support us and your whole department being so open to change, which has

been really great. so i also am joined by samuel who is a project manager at public works for all of 39 south van ness and then jeff hamilton who is a communications director for the project as well. so i'm going to give you an overview of the 49 south van ness project and the permit center which is the driving force for this building. i'm going to talk about how we are preparing through pilots at your existing locations and lastly i'm going to talk about electronic plan review. so this building, i'm sure you are very familiar with it. when i took this job, we spent four months where i went in depth observing. i sat with the team, i got to know them, i sat at the mission. i had a lot to learn when i took this job. i came from the mayor's office where i was used to improvements and being cheerful and pushy, but i had never worked in the perming world, so i really got a crash course from the employees in my first few months, and we did strategic planning.

and this is the mission and vision statement that came out of that process, ultimately signed off on by the mayor. john ram and many others were involved in that. what i love about this is we are going to be a one stop shop is what we are trying to say, and we are going to be friendly, streamlined and efficient. so i think about that quite frequently. what does it mean to be friendly, streamlined and efficient? so, well, we are going to be moving into a new 16-story building, 430,000 square feet. we sold three buildings to finance this project as a city. the whole second floor, which is the main public policy push for this, is to improve our service to the public. it's going to be a one-stop permit shop, about 40,000 square feet. we are going to have up to 500 transactions a day, up to 16 different departments interacting on the floor, and we are really using this move as a function for change. we are going to keep things that are working well, and we are going to change things that need to be improved. and by the way, we are moving,

starting to move in less than three months. so here's the picture of the building. you probably notice as you walk by. it's looking similar to this now. this picture has been here since before it was up at all. you can see there's going to be beautiful trees, balconies, light, planning will obviously be on floors 13 through 15. it's going to be so beautiful up there. beautiful views. yesterday i was there at the end of the day when the sun was setting. beautiful sunset. you can actually see future tower over the twin peaks. it's going to be very bright, everything new. new furniture, really wonderful. these are renderings of the permit center floor. another thing as i mentioned, we are going to colocate. we are going from 13 locations that we send customers to right now, and even just like at 1660, we send customers across six different floors of one of these 13 locations to one floor of one building as much as humanly possible. so a really big change for the staff. and after we move, we are down

to the orange dot on the page, we are going to be leaving port out on the port because it's more efficient for the port tenants. they already operate as a one-stop shop on the port but everyone else is coming in. so we are moving, we are colocating, does that mean we are immediately efficient, friendly and streamlined? not necessarily. we still have to be super thoughtful about how we organize. and when i was doing the discovery period, what i saw, which i was really pleased by, is i saw just huge -- i wasn't pleased by this but didn't find it surprising. there's a lot of bureaucracy. department staff want to do a good job. they are working super hard, but they have subpar technology and subpar space, and there's not a lot of -- everyone's nervous to tell anyone else what to do. so as a result, we kind of see a lot of silos. so really the benefit of this building is breaking that down, starting to work together, we are going to all be together. so i feel like it's not any

individual department's fault that things are the way they are, and i'm sure you all can appreciate that. but it's just really this bureaucracy. so how are we organizing the permit center? we have eight departments that we are calling regular station departments. they are going to be staffing our hopefully regular standard hours of operation, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. as of a week ago, thank you again to the planning department, you have expanded your historic preservation hours, which is amazing. customers are so excited about that. and we had ten different sets of hours of operation across these eight regular station departments when i did our initial analysis. and we are pushing everyone to the same hours of operation every day. so when you're a customer coming in, you know who you are going to be able to encounter when you come in. and then there's another group of departments that don't need to be sitting there all day, but they are going to have access to the floor.

maybe they are sitting in an upper floor, and we'll call them down to the next floor to meet with a customer. here's the floor plan. this is the second floor. another big thank you to planning. so instead of all planning staff being together, planning is going to have one business in -- one in the business area. we did this intentionally. a lot of thought went into how we structured the floor plan. we are trying to organize it around customer goals, instead of department. we are trying to think about this as what is a customer trying to do and how can we organize the whole floor to help them accomplish that. so the permit services area is the equivalent of the department of building inspection's i.p.r. and c.p.b. today which are permit techs who take your plans and help route you. the construction area is the equivalent of planners and engineers, people doing the technical review, and special events and business are not

related to construction permitting as much although there can be overlap. and so what are the changes that we are implementing? huge change is coming. we are going to be co-locating in the space. we are going to have a print shop, a one-stop print shop on the floor so that planners in the middle of the day, when someone rips down the signs all around someone's building and a planner three or four is like being called from city hall to go and print the signs again can seemlessly send the customer to the print shop on the floor where the job will be saved, and they can get them reprinted. that was on a idea that came from planning and public works. we are going to have valuized cashiering cashiering -- centralized cashiering. we have people who will smile and greet you when you you arrive. we have such a wide range of customers. we have customers that come every day, and we have customers that come once and every return. the customers who come once were

wandering around lost and confused, getting in the wrong line and sometimes crying. we cannot have that. last week we had a team of model molded after your 311 classifications. their job is to help the customer and route them appropriately. this should hopefully take workload off of your permit department staff who are just working so hard to issue thousands of permits a year as well. so it's a benefit for both customers and staff. and then technology, we also implemented -- we started in august, thank you again to planning, to try out our new electronic cueing system. we just went live last week across the fifth floor of mission. it was a big deal, and it went fine. no one freaked out. it's going well. people are seemlessly moving around the floor. it was a massive change. i was very nervous. but i'm really happy. i think we showed proof of can september. when we move into the new building, instead of everyone having their own sign in,

there's one location where everyone gets in the cue for all the departments. when i finish with planning, planning recused me into the building queue. if you haven't been by 1660, you should check it out. your team was supportive. the last one is electronic planner view. this is showing you, so how are we preparing for the change without overwhelming your employees? the answer is piloting. we started a pilot with planning and fire in august. then we implemented at public works in january. last week as i mentioned, we took a huge change live to test out all these concepts at our existing space, and that's what we are trying to do is slowly ramp up over time. and really so that we can get feedback before we move. so here's the fifth floor map. so you can see you come off the elevator. there's a giant start here sign. and then you go to one location on the floor where the team

greets you and helps to get in the line. we took a new routing step. the new customer service team, pictured now, lovely folks. a new system, a new customer service team. we implemented a new routing slip with no acronyms. that is a paper sheet that helps you understand your whole journey. and where you are going. we implemented signage changes. there was signs everywhere with arrows and all that got taken down. it was really fun. late at night one night. and now there's clear signage across the floor. and i should also note planning moved from the first floor to the fifth floor in january to fill at a time this change. we flipped your staff. they were so patient. so lovely, moving four months before another move. so i'm just really appreciative of how wonderful planning is. and that is it on the physical

space changes. i now wanted to talk to you about digital space changes. so it's really exciting the changes we are making in the physical space but if we want to have a huge impact on the customer experience, especially with intake permits, we really need better digital tools. so these are photos of actual cubicles full of plans and we are really going to try to go paperless. the permit center team is taking on the implementation of electronic planner view. we have huge support having christine on board to move this forward. and why are we doing this? it seems like it would be obvious but just to be clear, process improvements, no lost plans, efficiency, time saving, paper saving, environmental savings, cost savings, many, many reasons why we want to move away from paper plans and into the product we've selected. so we procured blue beam. it's being used frequently in the private sector right now.

s.f.o., the airport has been using it for their projects for two years. we have up to 15 city departments involved right now. we also brought, in addition to having christine who is so amazing and has so much experience with the planning department, we also brought on ae, they have implemented blue beam in other jurisdictions that went to no paper as well, and it's been really helpful having them on board. and this is not a big bang implementation. we are not saying starting tomorrow we are paperless. instead, what we have done is we have done three pilot projects, three 100% affordable projects. one teacher housing project, one 71-units for formerly house and one set of affordable units. and we are just piloting. our first project got completed entirely electronic review, 966 oak, that just finished last week. every department, what this means is, the plans live in the cloud. every department got invited in

by christine. they marked up their comments, and we yesterday invited the applicant in to review the comments. and this also date and time stamps everything that everyone does. so it's very clear who is doing what, who is saying what, really, really excellent tool. and really though, a big change. so it's did take us a little bit to ramp up in scale. we are in the middle of a massive move, as i mentioned, so we don't want to overwhelm people, which is why we are going to learn from this pilot and scale up over time. and i've also been told i talk very fast. so i am happy to answer any questions. i just wanted to be really respectful of your time today. and that's it. thank you. >> thank you very much. any more presentations or public comment? >> public comment. >> just the one speaker card from georgia. >> thank you. >> we may have questions for you

later >> that was really great. i need three minutes, please, i guess. a couple things occur to me. the thing that i'm looking forward to is that d.b.i. and planning will be together. and there's two things that come to mind as to why it's good they are together. one is the flat policy. so if somebody comes in, and they have a pair of flats, and they want to do something, it's caught if they are not doing something they should be doing. one thing that puzzled me are over the counter permits going to be with permit services. if you are just going to redo the flatlies would that be with construction? that information could be lost. so there's a lot of problems as you've seen with over the

counter permits coming on. the other thing is reviewing plans that are extreme alterations for the demo calculations. sometimes what happens is the plans are submitted, they go to the planner, and then six months or longer later, the planner has to write an n.o.p.d.r. saying i need the demo calcs. so that's -- when the project sponsor comes in with the plans, those demo calcs should be on there. i hope that with d.b.i. and planning together at that, the construction section, they can check on that. because right now, i don't know that that's always happening. and i know that d.b.i. looks at vertical expansions over $350,000 as demos. i assume they'll continue to do that unless something happens with 317.

so that's what i'm hoping, and it sounds like that will be the case. the other thing i have the question about, the paperless. right now, if you want to, as a member of the public, you can buy, for $5 a sheet, and it's pretty cheap, i know, a full-sized set of plans each sheet. and sometimes it's very helpful to people. so does that mean if you are going paperless that you won't be able to buy that anymore when you get it all ramped up? it's just a question. the other question i have is when the public comes in to see plans, if there's not, like i laughed at that scene but i've experienced that with all those plans. will you be able to see them on a full screen when you come in as a member of the public to review the plans? or will you have to look at a little screen? there's a big difference between a little screen and big screen. that's why the full-sized plans are sometimes important to look at at. that's basically it.

but i worry about the over the counter permit things and things getting missed. if over the counter is going to permit. the surgery between d.b.i. and planning is the most important thing you are going to get from this. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else for public comment? public comment is closed. commissioner fung. >> question for the presenter. i understand there's a software system that is going to be able to cross the departments. i understand that's a software system that's going to be able to cross between the departments. is that software system very expensive system finally in place? >> are you talking about -- so bluebeam is the system where -- >> i'm not talking about bluebeam. >> you are talking about d.b.i.'s p.t.s. system versus

what planning is using or -- >> planning will be going into that. >> they are using the software for their case management and a lot of times p.t.s. is being used as well. by planners. so they are going onto p.t.s., which is the department of building inspection's system. and they are signing off there and the other one. >> i understand there's going to be a common system. isn't that correct? >> i can't hear you >> i understand it's going to be a common system. is that not correct? >> you know, it would be better to have d.b.i. come and present. i'm not involved in that project. but i'm aware it is on hold at the moment. >> okay. >> commissioner imperial. >> i just want to address one of the public comment. is there going to be an option for paper for the plans? >> yes. and i will be happy to give anyone my card that wants to meet with me so we can walk through the details.

we are committed to meeting the customers where they are at. so for some customers, they love bluebeam, they are using it, and they are going to make comments back and forth with the city staff in bluebeam, but for some customers, they don't want to do that, so we are thinking through the need for different work flows, and we have the case where some people are not interested in using a computer, and we have a beautiful new brand new permit center where we would love to accept them and help them. and we can scan in their plans after they have submitted them for them. >> commissioner johnson. >> thanks. i just want to thank you for this presentation and to all of the staff and our wonderful planning staff who has been flexible through all this change. love the idea of having a cross-department collaboration in this space. we know that space is the only thing that fill dates collaboration between departments -- facilitates

collaboration. i think she is an expert in the use so i'm glad you switched information, and i hope you will talk. and a special thanks to ms. silva. i've heard from many people about your expertise and support in this process, that it's been really helpful and excellent. so thank you all so much. >> thank you. >> mr. snyder. >> not to pylon too much but i want to acknowledge and thank this particularly dynamic group, samuel and jeff and particularly melissa. the impact and benefit to all ability to serve the public is going to be tremendous. and work that you and your team have done, herding the various cats involved is herk -- hercul. >> thank you. i'm sorry i couldn't hear well

before. thank you. >> item 12 has been continued as have items 13a and b, places us on item 14 for case number 201-012576cua at 1769 bombard street. this is a conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon, commissioners. david, planning department staff. the case before you is a request for conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code sections 303, 145.2 and 71220 authorize an outdoor activity area in conjunction with a previously authorized kennel use at 1769 lombard street, as well as a required one-year review of the approved kennel use. condition number 13 of motion

number 20355 approved on december 13, 2018, requires a one-year review of the establishment and its adherence to the conditions. the establishment has adhered to a number of conditions but failed to adhere to others. i will summarize them here. condition number ten required interagency consultation between planning department staff and staff of other agencies of the city. since the previous commission hearing, staff maintained continual correspondence with staff at the department of public health, and the report includes a list of requirements that will be placed upon all animal care facilities by d.p.h. it will be subject to these conditions once the health permit is approved. that health permit is currently on hold at the planning department pending approval of this c.u.a. and a corresponding building permit. condition number 12 is a required staff to conduct unannounced inspections of the facility, three held on may 24,

july 23 and december 12 of 2019. during each inspection, staff was welcomed to view the interior of the establishment but prohibited by employees from walking through the establishment to the rear yard. condition number 11 required a neighborhood meeting to be held that included the attendance of department staff, to date this meeting has not yet been held. conditions number 14, 17 and 19 are operational conditions relating to minimizing nuisances on the adjacent properties. they have adhered to the conditions including assuring that employees use low voices, practice zero tolerance for animal cruelty. the establishment also has begun to drain all waste from the rear yard toward a sewer and away from adjacent properties. they have begun use of a bioenzymeenzyme product to contl

odor. they have not replaced artificial turf with concrete for one of the conditions, nor have they consulted a sound engineer, but they plan to do so upon approval of this c.u.a. as well as a corresponding building permit. condition 20 restricting use of the rear yard to 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. however because the area was never authorized, use of the rear yard is currently prohibited. the sponsor claims the rear yard is not in use, although this claim has been contested by some neighbors. the project sponsor also has volunteered a condition that no more than eight dogs be in the rear yard at any time and that all dogs in the year yard be supervised at all times. this has been reflected in an update to proposed condition number 15. prior to the 2018 hearing, authorizing the kennel use, staff received 23 letters of support as well as a support petition with 127 signatures. we also received one phone call

and three letters of opposition to the request. however, since that hearing, and up until today, staff received 38 letters of support and 22 letters of opposition, all of which are included. staff recognizes that there are significant concerns with this facility and nuisances on adjacent properties. however, on balance, the department finds the project to be compatible with the general plan and recommends approval with the recommended conditions. this recommendation is based upon community support, previous commission approval at a hearing in which the rear yard was extensively discussed, and continual monitoring per the conditions of the commission of this pending motion as well as the department of public health. thank you. and i'm available for any questions you may have. >> thank you. project sponsor. five minutes. >> can we have ten because it's a c.u., and we would like to have them explain it? >> well, seven. >> seven.

okay. i have a handout too. representing the project sponsor. so i'll speak very briefly about the c.u. that was approved a year ago, and this current c.u. does not change the physical size or capacity in any way. although the most, a year ago, most of the discussion we had here was about the year yard and the use of the rear yard, they determined after the hearing that the rear yard is categorized as an outdoor activity area and does require a separate c.u. that the prior hearing was not noticed for, and that's why we are here today. a typical n.c. district includes a bistre and retail-oriented street with zoning at the same block at the year. that is the case here as well. if you look at overhead, on the overhead, i have a current image of lombard street in front of

the business. not only is lombard street lined up a busy street with three lanes in each direction, you have businesss on both side of the street including a gas station. there's significant amount of construction going on and with respect to dogs, we also do have neighbors in our rear who also own dogs. the purpose of n.c. districts is to provide for a wide variety of commercial youings, including neighborhood -- uses, including neighborhood-serving uses. in a city that has more dogs than kids, kennels provide an extremely necessary service. you had in the record a number of support letters and signatures. what i just handed out to you are additional 32 letters in support that were written since last friday. including three letters from the residential neighbors who live above the space who would be the most impacted. in terms of the conditions for the use of the rear yard, those were already laid out in the c.u. a year ago.

and while that c.u. did not address the rear yard as an outdoor activity area, it absolutely addressed and conditioned the use of the rear yard. so given that, we are going to focus some of our points today on really on the one-year activity and kind of bring you up to speed as to what has been done and then what has not been done and why. so in your packets and on the overhead, you have this chart. you have this chart that summarizes the conditions of approval. and then it gives an explanation as to what has been implemented and what are the few items that are yet to be done. as was mentioned by staff, we have not yet consulted a noise consultant, and we thought it would be better to do that once the concrete is in place in the rear yard, since that's where i think the noise complaints are coming from. we did not change the turf to concrete, because in order to

actually use the rear yard, we need this c.u. for the outdoor activity area. the last item is the neighborhood meeting. there have been meetings and discussions with michelle who has been the unofficial representative for some of the concerned neighbors. there's a meeting with her in early april. another meeting was scheduled by her late april. it got canceled. but there's been other communication with her. so i'm going to turn it over to the general manager and the owner of the project to talk a little bit more. >> thanks for hearing our case today. my name is earnie, and i'm the general manager and owner at the grateful dog. all we want to do at the grateful dog is to provide a much-needed service for our community, taking care of dogs and live harmoniously with our neighbors, residential, commercial, all our neighbors. a lot has happened in the last couple years and it has been very draining on this company and all involved, physically and financially. to summarize our progress in the last year, we have done a lot to

address the operational aspects. we want to continue to be good neighbors, and we will do what is necessary to accommodate any concerns that may come up from time to time. we have implemented many of the operational plan requirements even though our backyard usage has changed. as much as we have done, the reality is there were neighbors who want us gone. some of the neighbors are here today and want us gone. that's not going to change. i want to emphasize we have been operating here since 2009. we chose this location because it had an outdoor space. no one opposed us then. all the opposition and complaints started a can you remember years ago when we were forced to apply for a c.u. as if we were a new business. there is a clear pattern of these complaints, an effort to paint the grateful dog in the most negative light. please keep in mind that we run a dog care business, and just because we have implemented the

operational action plan steps doesn't mean a neighbor would never hear a dog barking. most of our immediate neighbors have dogs, and they bark during the day, and guess who gets blamed for their barking. after every complaint that is reported, that i hear about, i always respond, investigate and go over with my staff. we want a peaceful relationship with our neighbors. we want to work with them, and we will do whatever it takes to address and mitigate any issues. what we do and have done is to implement a number of operational steps that minimize any noise and odor concerns. we run a business that is dependent on our customers trusting their dogs in our care. we have been around for over ten years, and we plan on being around for many more. we ask that you approve the rear yard subject to the conditions that were listed in a prior c.u. and accept our one-year report. thank you. >> hi. thank you. i'm car do. i'm the founder of the grateful dog back in 2009.

this business means the world to me. and our neighbors have made it really difficult. and i feel like it's maybe because we didn't hear from them in 2009, and some of those neighbors resided there then. and so here we are ten years later, and it seems like there's an opportunity to try to get us shut down. despite everything that earnie has said, i don't think there's a lot that we can do when that's somebody's ultimate objective is to shut down a small business. i don't know how much we can do to try to satisfy or appease them. and yes, we can always get better and we are working to get better. >> thanks so much. your time is up. we may have questions for you later. okay. seeing the project sponsor is done, public comment. is anyone here to publicly comment on this item? come on up.

>> my name is dr. stewart kaplan. i'm new to san francisco. i moved from the east coast, north carolina, about a year ago. i have a dog who is a relatively large lab mix, probably has some pit bull in him, and looks like it. when i walk him down the street, people are nervous seeing him. when he is exercised and well well-rested, he is as quiet and sweet as can be. when he's not, although, i don't think he would be aggressive, he can sound it. he can growl and be scary. he was in doggy day care every day that i had him for five years in north carolina. i never had an issue. when i moved here, i couldn't find a place that he would go to. well, when i used to drive up to the place in north carolina, he would run out of the car, he would get excited, and he would not want to go home.

i tried four other facilities in the city, and he was scared to go the second day. so i crated him at home, because that felt better, and his energy got up and got up and got up. so it was a public service to the city. now that i have found a place that he runs back into, he is again a quiet, peaceful dog that is completely non-threatening to everybody who sees him. i can't speak to whatever the neighbors have to say, but i know in the short time i've been with them, they have been responsible, they have been good small business owners. and i think provide a huge community service that's needed in this city. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else for public comment? >> i've lived in san francisco

for 25 years. >> speak into the microphone. >> my name is dory craig. i've lived in san francisco for 25 years. i have had a dog for a year. and when looking for a day care provider and border, it was nearly impossible to find anyone that was affordable and close. i don't have a car. i'm a true san francisco resident. so it made it very challenging. when i found the grateful dog, they were affordable, they were close to my home, and they treat my dog like with all the respect and care. i feel safe with her there. and like this previous gentleman said, sometimes she doesn't want to come home. it really wounds my ego, but she does enjoy being there. i can understand where people would have issue with barking dogs. but that whole neighborhood owns dogs. and there are more dogs in san francisco than children. if you live next to a school,

you don't ask the school to shut down because they are too loud during recess. in addition to that, it's a small business. it's successful and providing a huge service to people of san francisco. and i just think it would be a shame to push them out when they're doing such a huge service for residents. and finally, for the -- i've heard that people are concerned that their property values are going down because of the doggy day care, and i would say that they should look at the sidewalks and know that my dog's not sleeping on them. my dog is not defecating on their front porch either. so thank you. >> anyone else for public comment? come on up. >> hello. my name is elaina and i'm here on behalf of the grateful dog. the last three years i've lived directly above them in my apartment with my husband. and i'm happy to share that

we've actually been pleasantly surprised on how great it's been living above them as well as our other residents in the apartment building. they have lived there for nine years. and i'm speaking on behalf of them also. we moved here for work. before we even chose that neighborhood to live in, we sought out to find what's the best place for a dog, what's the best day care, we are going to be gone so many hours a day. and after speaking with some residents and some research, it became abundantly clear how well-respected in the community they are. and in the district especially there are dogs everywhere. almost every friend i have in the marina have a dog. it's a very dog-friendly and active community. and as you have recently heard, you are hearing how important this business is. this neighborhood needs this business. it is not only just a doggy day care, but it's a great one. they provide so much care and love, when we drop off my dog

when we have family troubles or a late day at work, i don't have to worry about it, and it is such a relief. i want to discuss concerns about the location and noise. so regarding the disturbance, there's a few things we questioned before moving in, would it be too loud when we are at home spending time, would this be bothersome, would it smell. and we were pleasantly surprised at the outcome. i see them constantly cleaning and performing maintenance on this place. i'm in there every day. i can see them doing. we have become friends with them. they are our neighbors, you know? and as well, we don't really smell anything. there's no wet dog smell or any issue. and we live directly above, and we have the same address and everything our mail goes to there. and also we don't have a problem with noise, even so much so that when people come over, they can't believe we have a doggy today care below. we tell them every time. further like they were saying before, we live in a city that

has construction on lombard. you can hear cars driving and motorcycles driving. it's a busy area. but it comes with the turf. and although i do understand the concerns, even if it's not those dogs barking, it's aa dog five doors down. so i really consider to be lucky to have them as neighbors. and they have held quite a reputation in the marina, and it takes time to do that where people can have such great things to say and be so trusting. >> thank you. anyone else for public comment on this item? >> yes, i'm with the southeast asian community center. and we are a small business assistance center in san francisco. we have been doing this for over 20 years actually. the grateful dog and carla has been our client now for over ten years. and we did help them get started in the beginning. we've been working with them for over a ten-year period. and seeing how successful they

have become over the years, they offer an excellent service in the area and a very-needed service. and as you know and many people have said here, there are so many dogs in this city. and there is a need for these kinds of services, especially in their particular area. so i want to voice my support for the grateful dog and car do and hopefully the -- carla, and hopefully the committee will approve. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else for public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner fung. >> question for the applicant. the beginning of your presentation, your attorney indicated that you are going to discuss why some of these

conditions were not maintained. i didn't hear any explanation. >> maybe i could briefly recap. so one of the conditions was to change the artificial turf that's currently in the rear yard into concrete and install a concrete barrier at the edge. we did not do that one yet, because that is in the rear yard. >> let's deal with the two issues that are the most prevalent from the opposition. one is noise. one is sanitation. let's deal with the noise. why wasn't the sound study done? >> so -- because we have not yet changed the turf into concrete. because i think the noise concerns were not coming from the building. so the windows to the building, the doors to the building are kept shut, so noise is not a concern coming from the building. it's the noise from the rear yard. and i think once we have the concrete in place, i think that is, we felt, the more appropriate time for the noise

consultant to opine on the additional things that should be done. >> i'm not sure what i heard from the opposition that the noise is also coming from within the building. >> some of the mitigation measures we had last year was to make sure that the windows are shut, the doors are shut during the business hours so the noise is confined, and that has been implemented. >> all right. then the question is do you folks dispute that there's noise supposedly affecting some of your neighbors? >> i don't think there's a lot of noise coming out of our facility, because the back door is usually always closed except for when we are going out >> that's not my question. my question is do you dispute that the neighbors who have complained about noise is hearing the noise from the building? >> i dispute a lot of their

claims, yes. >> commissioner diamond. >> question for counsel. why didn't your client allow for the backyard to be inspected? and the fact that they said that there's a liability issue is not really a satisfactory answer, because it was a condition. so i need to know why you didn't figure out a way to solve that. >> so the visits that were done by staff were unannounced so we don't know about them ahead of time. there is, and i think carla can speak to it more, but there is a liability of letting people into the main area inside where the dogs are free. they are not in cages. they are free in the floor. so there's a liability. but what we can do is if they decide to visit the rear yard, we can provide access through the upstairs neighbor so the person doesn't have to go through the main floor. but that's my understanding. >> can you speak into the

microphone? >> we have to give them notification. as a matter of fact elena, she is the one who i would have to get in touch with, and she would go downstairs and unlock the door. it's always locked for security reasons. >> before i ask a question on that issue to staff, i would like to know why you didn't hold the neighborhood meeting? >> we did. >> we had one meeting in april, and we had another one scheduled. and michelle wool canceled it. she said there was nothing to cover. and then we had a liaison, bruce bedroomen, who was in charge of that, and -- bruce berman, who was in charge of that, he tried to rally up another meeting, and they didn't have any interest on that. >> can i ask two questions to staff? i can clarify too a little bit. it wasn't a noticed neighborhood meeting as i think the planning department typically expects. so we can certainly do that. it was a meeting with michelle wool who was the main representative for some of the concerned neighbors.

>> okay. thank you. staff, i have questions for you. >>. when the conditions were put in place last year, was it your expectation there would be unannounced visits to the rear yard? >> mine? >> yeah, staff. >> well, it's written that way in the motion. it says, so if i announced them i would not be adhering to the motion. >> and says here that they didn't meet the condition about a neighborhood meeting. they are saying they had one. >> yeah. >> any meetings that happened, i don't know about them. the meeting that was put in place by the condition said that staff should attend. i don't think it says anything about notification so meetings may have occurred but a meeting specifically that satisfies that condition that says attended by staff was not held. >> another follow-up question, which is what is the enforcement right of the planning department, assuming we go forward, if we go forward, does

the planning department and also the department of public health have the right to go back and do inspections and shut them down if they are not in compliance with the conditions? >> well, i can speak only to planning department's enforcement requirements, basically any condition of any motion must be enforced. >> but are you required -- you had a one-year inspection rule. are you suggesting additional inspections be carried out on a regular basis? >> i'm suggesting nothing other than the conditions that are proposed here. >> and they don't require that at the moment, is that correct? no ongoing inspections by the planning department to ensure -- >> that's not what's before you. correct. if you have other conditions that you would like to place upon it, that's your prerogative, is my understanding. going back to your original question, basically our enforcement team handles not just building permit issues, building beyond the scope but also conditions of approval. if any of those conditions are

not met, then enforcement staff will helicopter to work on that. there's an enforcement planner who has been assigned to this case for quite a while, and we have been in constant communication so make sure they are working towards adhering to all conditions. one of those conditions would be getting the outdoor activity area certified, which they are seeking to do today. >> thank you. i'll say to the other commissioners, i wasn't here a year ago when this was approved. i believe there is a need for more dog facilities in the city. i own a dog and probably a number of us own dogs and want to be able to accommodate dogs. but i'm really troubled by the fact that they didn't comply with two conditions that exist already. and i personal at the moment would be in favor of continuing this until they comply with the exact language of those conditions. assuming they do that and staff comes back and tells us, maybe that would change the nature of staff's conditions if they actually held the neighborhood meeting that staff attended and actually saw the backyard. and i don't feel at the moment,

prepared to make a decision until there's full compliance with those conditions. and on top of that, assuming we get there, i would like to see a condition that has periodic inspections at least for a while afterwards so we can make sure that they can, once the noise is taken care of, and the concrete is in place, to see actually whether or not it's working. but that's just what i'm thinking at the moment, but i would love to hear from the rest of you in terms of where your views are. >> commissioner fung. >> another question for staff. it was similar to the question i asked the applicant. but when i read the condition about the sound testing, it was to the premises, not related to the yard. >> sorry. yeah. >> is mine on? >> yeah.

>> when i read the condition for the sound test, and it applied to the building, i believe. as part of the original conditional use. and so the applicant is saying that they are going to do the sound test after the turf is in the rear yard is changed. well, that has nothing to do with the sound prevention from the building. is that not correct? >> i'll refer specifically to the language of the motion. so that would be condition number 19, which reads, let me see, the project sponsor shall consult a licensed sound jeer to determine best practice of noise abatement concerns and shall implement any methods recommended by the sound engineer. the premises, so i guess maybe your definition of premises. the premises shall be adequately insulated for noise so the noise shall not be audible beyond the

premises. >> i don't think it's my interpretation of the word premises. it's your condition. as far as you know, then, they had the one meeting but no mitigations were discussed between the project sponsor and the neighbors? >> if meetings occurred outside my knowledge, i can't speak to it >> you are not aware of any? >> correct. i've heard what the sponsors told me today which is that they met and tried to discuss issues and whatever the outcomes of those were was the outcome. >> just to conclude my comments, i'm also not supportive at this point. based upon the fact that if there is noise in a facility and it's bothersome to some potentially, the generator of that noise in their business

needs to take care of that within their own facility. >> commissioner moore. >> were you the planner last year on this project >> say that once more. >> were you the planner last year of this project? >> i've been the planner since the beginning of the project, yeah. >> for those commissioners who were not around last year, it was an extremely contentious meeting as you will recall. the opposing party is not here, but that does not make me not remember how controversial the meeting was. one of the reasons why it's controversial is this commission very much supports small business, and particularly the lombard corridor. however, the adjoining residential neighborhood, as you move up towards the south, is all residential. it's high on residential, they live pretty much right on top of this small open yard which is in question.

the noise issue is a matter of personal sensitivity. and even one dog barking too many hours in an apartment during the day can be of great annoyance to one person. in this particular case, we had an entire representative group of adjoining neighbors coming and saying they just could not really envision having multiple dogs barking out there, and dogs not necessarily bark but they do. and when we speak about outdoor activity areas, for example, an outdoor sitting area for restaurant or bar, we always are very, very careful in order to find appropriate noise attenuation members or not permit it at all depending how close residential is nearby. i'm on the fence on this one. i was not really supporting outdoor at that time either. i support the operation as an indoor facility with the proper noise provisions. but just as my fellow

commissioners here to my right, at this moment, i am not in support of this being permitted for an extra outdoor area. particularly i believe that the concrete surface for this particular rear yard is not the appropriate measure adjoining to other outdoor open spaces for residential use. >> seeing as that there is very high demand for these businesses in this location, i would be supportive of denial. i'm leaping toward supporting but would be okay with the continuance. commissioner imperial. >> incidence i was not here and opposition are not here. but i am support this small businesses as well. but i would like to see as well as like a plan for more

consistent inspection and to have community meeting, it would be great to have a planner to be in that community meeting so that you can also give us that kind of feedback when you return as to what has inspired. so i would support in continuing this item as well. >> a motion? >> commissioner johnson >> i will make a motion. i agree with my fellow commissioners. i think not having met many of the conditions gives us pause. i think the benefit of meeting with the -- holding a community meeting as well is that i think some of us are on the fence about whether or not this outdoor activity is actually a good use in this space. so understanding what mitigations you might be willing to put in place with community members or other things you might do to operate outside with your dogs is important to us in

helping us make a determination. so with that, i will move to continue this item. >> second. >> do you have a -- >> clarification before you do that. does your motion also -- for continuance, can it be amended to include the unannounced inspection of the backyard? >> absolutely. >> that was the original condition, so i would like to see them do that. i don't know if commissioner -- i'm in agreement with commissioner fung's condition about the study on the premises that currently exist. >> thank you for helping me be more specific. i think what we're looking for is a community meeting held. a sound engineer around the interior of the building. and also an inspection which will be unannounced by nature of the inspection. >> of the outside area.

>> the outside area as well. >> thank you. then i second that. or there already was. >> i seconded it. >> is that amendable? you mentioned there were restrictions on allowing that inspection, correct? can you elaborate on that? >> yeah. i think you need to work with the insurance company to figure out. >> well, i can probably make that happen. i can probably -- >> it is for the safety of the inspector, with dogs. >> i would get a key from one of our neighbors upstairs and always have it there accessible so any time an inspector came in, i could take them straight upstairs, and he wouldn't have to walk through the pit area and be exposed to the dogs. right. no problem. >> can i clarify on what the motion is? is the motion to approve the c.u. subsequent to the continuing? >> no. >> so here's my question. are you requiring them to do the rear yard improvements without the right to use the rear yard?

>> clarify on that. yeah. >> come on up, staff. >> from my understanding, i'm not there every day. to my understanding, they are not permitted to use the rear yard now. from what we have been told, they are not using the rear yard. i will adhere to any motion that requires inspection, but i think what they are trying to say, and i maybe need to clarify, is i mean, i can inspect the rear yard, but my understanding is there won't be any dogs there, which is fine, i'm happy to do that nonetheless. i just wanted to clarify what that is from my understanding. >> unannounced inspection, it maybe to confirm that there are no dogs in the rear yard. >> also i'd like planning staff to see the rear yard, because it may be that once they are there, and they see where the windows are that they may come up with

additional suggestions for conditions. so i still think it's beneficial. >> did you have a time frame for the continuance, commissioner? seems like they have a lot of work to do ahead of them. >> do you have a suggestion? >> as soon as they can -- excuse me. as soon as they can do it. i don't want to continue this on some arbitrary number. they are anxious to get going, so how fast do you think you can satisfy the conditions? >> come on up. >> i'm at the point where it's difficult for us to stay open in san francisco. we have been serving thousands of clients for the better part of the decade, and this cost us hundreds and thousands of dollars. we are at the point of bankrupting the business. we are doing the best we can. there's a need for the business. we are losing clients and we are

losing staff because we are getting harassed by neighbors. the corridor is really loud. so we could bring an acoustical engineer. i've worked for one of those companies before. we are happy to have someone come out but we are not the only noise in the neighborhood. it's commercial lombard corridor. it's highway one. we are getting beat up because of the noise but nobody is thinking about the fact that there's a lot of noise, and we are not the only dog. i'm so tired of how much work we've done on this and how hard it was for us to open in 2009, and we keep getting put through the ringer, and i'm sorry, but i just can't stay in san francisco anymore if this is going to continue to happen to us. we need use of the rear yard. we've lost so much on this already so the neighbors can be happy about that because they want us shut down ultimately. having a meeting with them, i don't know how much that's going to help. because they want us shut down. there's nothing we can do to appease them. >> okay. thank you. >> i believe in experience, acoustical engineer can judge on the levels of noise, depending

on use, not on this very specifics of the facility. i do think that commissioner fung's request to also reflect on the noise coming from the interior is equally important, but that can't be done without the rear yard being fully built out. so i personally would suggest we give this four to six-weeks if you can do it earlier, that would be fine but having also meeting is obviously something you need to prepare for. >> given the nature of the meeting, i think actually giving them a couple of months just with schedules and things like that would feel a little bit better. but again agreed that don't want to drag this out longer. >> the urgency. >> april 23rd. >> yeah. >> do you have a comment? >> april 23rd was the

continuance. i mean, i think -- what are we now? march -- >> i think we can probably do it a little bit sooner. >> clarification that we need to be done again. i think just from being here, they want just another, like, outline of what needs to be done. then they would have a better idea. >> the commission in their motion made it explicit. compliance and adherence to the original conditions of approval. >> they have attended noticed community meeting. >> that was part of the original conditions of approval. >> correct. i'm explaining. >> things that have not been done to date >> commissioner diamond. >> so we have two times when we are not meeting between now and april 23. so i want to make sure that there's room on the agenda, to do it before april 23. >> there really isn't unless we

do march 19 which i don't believe there's enough time. >> april 23 then. >> very good, commissioners on that motion to continue this matter to april 23 with direction for the project sponsor so adhere to the original conditions of approval, [roll call vote] so moved, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. commissioners that will place us under your discretionary review calendar, item 15a was withdrawn and 15b was continued places us on item 16 for case number 2019-13012drp-02 at 621 11th avenue. >> good afternoon, commissioners. david winslow, staff architect. the item is a public initiated request for a discretionary review of building permit application 20190613.3354 to

construct a second story horizontal rear addition of 12.' side setback to the north and of' side setback to the south along with a first floor horizontal rear addition that extends 8' 10s" beyond the first floor and the 4' side setback to the north of 621 11th ann. there are two d.r. requesters. kevin wong, the adjacent neighbor to the south and chao of 619 11th avenue, neighbor to the north. they are concerned the proposed project violates the residential design guidelines related to neighborhood character, light, air, privacy and scale and access to the mid-block open space. the proposed alternatives are to reduce the extension of the

second floor by three to five feet, stagger the windows facing their properties and make the sidewalls to the deck transparent. to date, department has received no letters in support or in opposition to the project. because the extent configuration of the proposed rear addition including the four foot and six foot side set backs, echoes the pattern of massing found on the two adjacent properties that preserves access to the mid-block open space, light, air and privacy, staff's recommendation is to not take d.r. and as the project does not present any exceptional or extraordinary conditions. this concludes my presentation. and i'm happy to answer questions. thanks. >> thank you, mr. winslow. so we have two d.r. requesters. we are going to hear from d.r. requester number one first. come on up.

>> is that on? >> sf gov, can you go to the overhead, please? >> good afternoon, commissioners. i hope you are well. my name is kevin wong and my wife and two sons, 11 and nine, live at 625 11th avenue. we are the south neighbor to the proposed project. we have lived there since june of 2011. before i begin, i would like to acknowledge that we have enjoyed being the neighbors. they are good people. but the past years, we have been their neighbors and we hope they don't take this process personally. we understand that regardless of the outcome, our hope is they see us in the same vain as we see them. we truly value being good neighbors. we believe in being considerate, conscientious and communicative in building good relationships. we wish we did not have to take

your time in this matter. but despite this sponsor's good character, their actions have shown zero consideration and next to nothing in regards to communication while drafting this project. i say extremely disappointing that the sponsor and their architect refuse to discuss the project with us. i have seen this department and commission prohibit projects from moving forward for approval until the owner tries to at least listen or work with their neighbors. in this case, we are attempting to sit down with the sponsors to voice concerns about the project. and each time the sponsors and their team have either denied the request or ignored them. when we first saw the plans, we were concerned that the plans may not have been accurate. submittal did not show windows on the north side of our property. we requested the adjacent building be shown accurately so we can understand the impact of this project. we have asked the owners to provide three renderings of the light and shadow studies so the

impact can be better understood. i have seen many projects from this commission provide this information to neighbors when requested. in fact when we did our remodel, a light and shadow study was provided, reflecting our attempt to be considerate to those around us. despite the refusal of any discussion about this project with us, we believe there are exceptional circumstances that would deem this condition to take d.r. the residential design guidelines and planning code require that light is maintained to adjacent propertys and consider the impact an expansion has on light and privacy for structures. the volume of the project shall reduce our light and privacy and specifically will box in the rear of our second floor where our family and i spend most of our time. this is the main gathering space for us and contains our desk which my wife and i use daily since we work from home. in addition, our sons in the afternoon spend most their time in this room, basking in the westerly day light, reading books and doing homework.

the decks will look straight into the windows of the properties on either side, reducing privacy. we are not trying to stop them from building and developing their home. their current proposal creating a large family structure with nearly 4,300 square feet. given this amount of square footage, we believe this is an opportunity to make minor changes that will help minimize impact to our light and privacy. the sponsor refused to talk to us. we would have the commission to have the extension match ours. this would reduce their current extension by three feet which is a 75 square feet reduction to their proposed project. we would also like the sidewalls of the deck to be cable railing or glass to further preserve our light. we would like to request the windows on the south side on the second floor be staggered to preserve privacy. as you can see from the exhibit, it creates a visual highway into

each other's homes. this element of design is a lack of thoughtfulness while taking away our privacy. we feel these three items are minor alterations and had they been willing to show an ounce of consideration, a little bit of community spirit and openness to dialogue as good neighbors do, we felt we could have reached a compromise to satisfy all parties involved and avoid taking your time. however, since we cannot force the owner to speak to us about what we believe are reasonable concerns and requests, we respectfully ask this commission to take d.r. and include these minor modifications. thank you. >> thank you. now we are going to hear from d.r. requester number two. come on up. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. my name is chao. i have been living at 11th avenue since 1992 with my wife and daughter. this is my first time here. so please excuse my accent. when we were first notified about this project where there was no date or time for the required preapp meeting, we have been able to obtain, but it was giving little detail of the project and promised by the architect to follow up which never occurred. we had a time, numerous time to walk with the owner and architect only to be ignored. we had a time to relayout comes about inaccurate plans as we know that most of the work done to this home in the past was done without a permit, without

waiting for the permit for plans. we are concerned about the order property line windows. we are also impressed with planning's effort to have us meet to reach a compromise and given mr. david winslow open gate for the meeting. once again, the project sponsor refused. so, commissioners, we have left with no choice but to file d.r. we are simply asking for the following items. one, accurate showing of all windows on the property. we believe this will provide a better understanding of the impact that this extension has to our light. two, new windows on this project should be staggered so that it does not look into our windows, thereby affecting our privacy and light. three, any vertical part of the

deck should be either rail or glass to further minimize any impact to our light. four, scale back this proposed second-floor extension by five feet to minimize the impact to our light so we can see in this photo. we have little light. which would be totally lost in this living room. we are supportive of the project sponsor renovating their home. we are also concerned with the impact to our daughter, my 36-year-old daughter is autistic the and living with us. she spends most her time in the living room which would be most affected by this project. she does not allow -- she loves the sunshine. she not only love the sunshine in the living room but also her disability access to light is necessary to her health. we are surprised that the

planning department and this commission would approve a project where the project sponsor refused to discuss the project with adjacent neighbors. any application to accommodate to serious concern to light and privacy. we ourselves made numerous changes to our home renovated to accommodate mr. mcclaire by eliminating our deck and decrease the size of window because he wants to see the open space of our backyard. the owner was a without any consideration to adjacent neighbors. there were other san francisco property to minimize impact to the adjacent neighbor's light and privacy. commissioners, the proposed project does not even attempt to

minimize impact on light and privacy to adjacent properties. the project sponsor is seeking to build a large single-family home nearly 4,300 square feet. we have heard about numerous projects that would not only makeling minor modification or accommodate neighbor concern but also including an a.d.u., other changes to ensure that the project is consistent with the city's housing policy. and all direction to work with other's neighbors. we respectfully request that the commission take a discretionary review and incorporate the minor modifications which will still result in a home over 4,200 square feet. thank you very much for the attention. >> thank you very much. now we will take any public comment in support of the d.r. requesters opposed to the

project. okay. seeing none, project sponsor, your turn. >> good afternoon, commissioners and mr. winslow. i am jim mccare and my wife mary and i are the owners of 621 11th avenue. we have lived there for 37 years. we have always had a good relationship with our neighbors, including the chens to the north and wongs to the south. these are the two neighbors that are requesting the d.r. application. these two neighbors have extended their houses in a way that is very close to what we are proposing. when the chens added on years ago we were not happy with the amount of light and view we lost but at that time we thought this is what the city is allowing, the planning and we will just have to get used to it. we also thought at some point

that we might do a similar project. a few years ago, kevin wong at 625 did a similar addition and resulted in the same situation, blocked light and view to our house. and again, we did not interfere with this project. now it is time for us to add onto our house. our daughter and son-in-law and grandchild live with us. they work in the city, and everybody knows what housing in the city is like. for this reason, we want to maximize our allowable space at our house. we were very surprised when these two neighbors objected to our plans since we felt they already did what we planned to do, and we felt our plans were reasonable. the size of our second floor additions extends a little further than the wong's addition but less than the chen's addition and is narrower than both. our setback is four on the north which is less than their setbacks to our house.

we feel our plans are very reasonable, and that's what i we did not want to change them, and we felt like what is there for them to do should be fair for us to do. so i would like to show a few pictures. so this is the relationship between the three houses. >> you are going to have to pull that microphone over and speak into it. >> their houses are outlined in red. as you can see, the 619 is about three feet from our property line, we would be four feet from theirs. and kevin wong's is four feet, while we would be six feet. ours is outlined in the green. it's a little further out than him but not nearly as far out as theirs. if we cut back five feet, we would be nine feet back from where they are right now.

as far as the square footage they mentioned our house is about 2500 now and we are going to be putting on around 700 so that's not 4,000 feet like what they were saying. this picture is actually from the chen's application, and it shows the relationship of the three houses where they state our house is out of character with the neighborhood. i would say that the picture of our house in the middle fits in quite well with the houses on either side of it. this right here is a picture from my roof looking down at the chen's addition on the right-hand side over here. our addition is going to mirror our deck right here. so you can see the difference in size and what we are adding on to the second floor.

this is another picture of the chens' house next to us and our deck, the size that we are going to add on. as you can see, this is the size of our addition again, same thing. we are going to add on the size of our deck right here. there's a lot of room between our house and the wong's house to the south. there's at least ten feet right there. this is the wongs' addition. it's a beautiful addition. and our lower floor will be the very similar to his, sticking out below the fence line. and our second floor will be the same height as theirs. we will be narrower because we couldn't go all the way to the property line on that side.

this is a view of the wongs' house looking out of our dining room window. you can see the addition comes right to here that they added on. it does block some of our light and view from that side. and this is what we look at every day out of our kitchen window is the -- the chens side. the windows they are worried about are back in here so partly are blocked by their stairway. so we know they want us to change the size of our building, but i feel like our plans are very reasonable, and i actually talked to kevin wong about that before, and if you remember seeing my response, i address the thing about the window. i said we would put fogged or ribbed glass in so we wouldn't be looking into his house.

we really don't want to do that anyway. so we just, we feel like it was fair for them to do, should be fair for us to do. that's why, you know, we knew they wanted us to knock a lot of space off, but we felt like we wanted to pursue the plans the way they were drawn up and approved. so that's it. >> thank you. >> so you have four minutes left. if there's someone that lives in the same house as you, now would be their same time to speak. otherwise they'll be called up as public comment later. >> i think we've said it all. you know, not meeting with them is just because they knew what we wanted to do, and they knew we felt like it was fair so why would we want to chop five feet off when they're already almost four feet past us. and talking about how much square footage, that's not even true. >> and we will have you back up here for a two-minute rebuttal if you want too. if there's anyone from the

public in support of the project sponsor in favor of the project, now is your time to speak. okay. seeing none, the d.r. requesters, you each have a two-minute rebuttal. >> thank you, commissioners. so some of the ideas, on the plans themselves, to say that will house will be 4,287 square feet. so there's the discrepancy, it's not being reflected in the plans that should be accurately drawn. second of all, in terms of the character, you'll see that on the foes he presented -- photos he presented, desid i did have cable railing as well as the -- i did have cable railing as well as the neighbors two-doors down have cable railing. he mentioned having ribbed glass but those are temporary solutions. those are areas where the windows could be easily replaced

to be clear from another owner, so we aring for something more -- we are looking for something more permanent to preeve our privacy. the -- preserve our privacy. the other thing is there's no objection to the building of the property. we just want to ask for modifications. the fact that we couldn't sit down, as you can see, they felt they had the right to do whatever they wanted to do. we felt that's not very community-spirited as well as not consistent with the planning commission's guidelines for building. and again, we haven't seen -- if there were going to be ribbed glass or fogged glass, there weren't any modifications shown in the submitted plans that were provided. so that is all. thank you for your time. >> d.r. requester number two, you have a two-minute rebuttal.

>> thank you, commissioners. i don't think -- because he say on the application that you can see the 4,000 feet. you look there. the extension the building to where the current deck is, in addition to extension of -- those severely impact my light and the entire rail portion, my building. okay, you can see that from this. and the extension here, this is the extension to the house. almost equal to my house. in addition to what they say. you can look at the back. because they are sitting on the top of the hill. five feet above us. so you can see the back of this, the extension here, totally out of my house. so blocking our light completely.

so the neighbor deck transparent or glass. there's no deck that can close a solid wall. you can see the deck is enclosed. looks like a building out front. so totally no light goes through. so i don't think he's talking about is correct description if you look at it, their plan. okay. that's all my, the end of concern about this. thank you. >> thank you. project sponsor, you now have a two-minute rebuttal as well. >> i still don't get where they are getting the 4,000 feet. but anyway. the walls we would like to put on the deck, on the side of the deck, would be similar to this, obviously. >> the microphone

>> on the end, we were planning to have, it shows in our plans having a wire thing. but on the sides we feel like we would like to have the walls with the siding that matches our house to keep some privacy between their deck and our deck. i mean, their deck has the wire on the side. if we are sitting on our deck. so that kind of keeps things separate as far as we are concerned. i don't think that's a major thing because where his windows are would be looking over the deck. and the deck is at the ground level. it's not up at the second level where the addition is going to be. so anyway. like i say, they extended out way past us. we have had to get used to that gigantic addition where they put their stairs out to the side. we've lived with that for 12 years. and we just had to get used to it. that's just what we figured in life. so we don't feel like our plans are unreasonable at all. we would like to pursue them the

way they are. so that's about it. thank you. >> thank you. that concludes the public comment portion of this item. i'll just start off by saying i'm in favor of staff's recommendations and really think that this addition is smaller than the two on either sides of you. commissioner diamond. >> i'm also in favor of staff's recommendation. i didn't hear any description of exceptional or extraordinary circumstances that in my opinion would justify taking d.r. >> commissioner moore. >> i believe that the applicant is showing the modulation that is very much reflective of what's to the left and to the right, to the north and south, and i could not see anything exceptional or extraordinary myself either. i make a motion to approve. >> second. >> seeing nothing further there's a motion that has been seconded to not take d.r. and

approve the project as proposed. on that motion-[roll call vote] so moved. that motion passes unanimously 6-0. places on us item 17 for case number 2017-7931drp-02, 2630 divisadero street. discretionary review. >> good afternoon. david winslow, staff architect. the item is a public request for discretionary review of building permit 2019-0613.3554 to demolish a three-story single family dwelling and construct a new three-story, 7700 square foot single-family dwelling. the proposed new building will be three feet shorter than the new building as it will have a flat roof, above which

720-square foot roof deck is proposed. there are two d.r. requesters. laura and raphael of 2673 broad way and cindy of 2682 broad way. both parties are adjacent neighbors to the south. she is concerned the proposed additional is not articulated to reduce impacts to privacy and light. the rear is not compatible with the scale at the mid-block open space. the roof deck impacts privacy and violates an existing view and that the noise from the roof equipment will be excessive. the proposed alternatives are to confine the project to the footprint, and to eliminate the proposed roof deck. she is concerned about noise due

to mechanical roof equipment as well, nighttime litem nateing from the skylight and privacy -- light emanating from the skylight and privacy. her proposed alternatives are to reduce the size of the roof deck and limit the usable area to the east of the skylight, reduce and provide coverage of the skylight, relocate rooftop mechanical equipment and reduce the massing at the southeast corner. to date, the department has received no letters in support nor letters in opposition. staff's recommendation is to take the d.r. and approve the project with the following modification: to reduce the massing at the southeast corner, at the third floor, the original line of the rear wall, the bay projections, provide an adequate notch that allows for mid-block open space and light to ms. yu's property in particular. this concludes my presentation. i'm happy to take questions.

>> we will hear from d.r. requester number one. >> i have some documents. [please stand by]

cindy was fair and you would expect a good neighbor to be. they have asked for mitigation of mechanical noise and line of sight and mitigation of personal mitigation of the skylight and they, as well as the solar panels and low profile brackets for which we thank them, they have been inflection able with respect to the rear yard massing and roof deck.

the mass of skylight is a pollution concern but with respect to the roof deck, the proposal is massive. it's a thousand square feet and it covers almost the entire roof, the deck would be close to lauren and rafael's home and the window into the main living area would be 15 or less feet away. it would have a negative impact on their privacy as the deck would have direct line of sight into their main living area and would create significant light pollution and rooftop clutter. further, this deck, which exhibits many features such as cooking and storage facilities, is meant to be a party deck with an intensity of use out of

charter with the neighborhood. it presents noise concerns and an unreasonable imposition on neighbors in general. therefore, we ask the roof deck be denied in full and the rear yard massing be consistent within a used position and confined at the second and third-storey of the project southeast corner to the current building envelope. thank you for your time. >> thank you. let's hear from d.r. requester number 2. >> sf gov will go to it when you start speaking.

>> ok. hi, good afternoon commissioners, david, and hello everybody. my name is cindy yu and i live at 2682 broadway and my house is directly perpendicular to the project sponsors' house. i'm showing you a diagram of hoe looking down on their house and it's kind of exactly like how you are looking at this, my hi-tech demonstration right here. i built this myself yesterday because i thought it would best and most efficiently explain my concerns. so, the viewpoint where you are sitting is where my house is.

this is the project sponsors' house as it currently is. with its current footprint. the new proposal that they plan to have is to build out a rear extension such as this. so, in essence, this is what i'm going to be looking at. the lines you see here from this loin to this line is the current width of my house. my house right set up above to this and my direct line of sight. i do understand that planning has suggested and made a recommendation that you will approve this house with the modification. modification being that this

part is removed and this part is going to be the new proposed plan according to modification recommended by planning. to me, this doesn't serve the purpose. i know you are all vested with why this discretionary power to deny and grant permits. i'm not asking you to deny it. i'm asking you for a chance to look at this from my point of view and i also fall under the am bid of your power to protect my power with my access to mid block open space. that's what i'm asking. so for me, the best scenario is they can maintain the current footprint leaving their existing open balcony on the third floor

open but extend first, second flor floor, in the back on the lower floors. to me, i feel this is effective because it essentially protects and up holds this section which is my only access to mid block open space. my building is odd because i'm sandwiches between two houses on both sides with non confirming, which are no non conforming structures. i don't have open space on this side at all because laura's building is right here. this is my only slit for air light. this is my only access to mid block open space. by just enclosing this and

cutting this notch out, it doesn't really relief the light her tailment and i want to bring to you the attention of what the planning commission did about 20 years ago. my house is -- my whole block went through demolition and construction. i went through remodeling adjacent to my house, we went through demolition and remodeling. so planning has ruled that my neighbor here, oops, my neighbor here, they wanted to push the back rear to this line. planning has ruled, because of the exceptional and extraordinary circumstances of restricted space in the back.

leaving me with only this mass of open space, for light and air, that they had asked them to move the line back to be flush with my building. i ask you to uphold the ruling that you did 20 years ago and protect that little con constrid space in the back. >> thank you. >> we'll take public comment from members of the public in support of the d.r. requesters in support of the project. seeing none, the project sponsor. you are up. >> >> good afternoon, commissioners, jody knight. on behalf of project sponsors tella and thomas. we're here today on a project that we think is compatible with the surrounding buildings and reasonable for the site. as you hear when you hear about the design, although, there's square footage being added only 469 feet is above grade because

every effort has been made to minimize any impacts. we've had many discussions with the project and we had follow-up conversations and unfortunately we're here today. a few issues that we're working with the dr requesters regardless of any other outcome in terms of the sky light issues related to the mechanic als and solar panels and we're working with the dr requesters on that and they're just good-neighbor issues and we'll continue to work on that. the house is designed to be built below that easement. the dr request that people on the roof violates -- it's an object on the roof that violates'ment. we did think there's legal merit to that but it may be a question for a judge for another day.

it's not a question for the commissioners here. i will now pass this off to jim westover who will present the design and we have questions and thank you for your time today. >> good afternoon, this is dustin foster and i'm jim. this first image we will start with is an areaal view to give you context. our clients' house is outlined in red and. >> the main takeaway is the two houses are up the hill from us and they're top two levels and they're roof deck do look directly over our project so i don't think there's an issue with light and air. also there's no blocking of direct sunlight just ambient

sunlight and we'll go into more detail on that. the next i am age is a front elevation in relation to the u residents. the blue dash line is showing the existing profile. and i think we're showing here is we're expanding the profile in this view and we're adding throw feet at the side and it's occurring next to the other house on the corner and it was not one of the dr requesters. we're increasing, we're not increasing the roof height but we have a railing that increases the over all height by 14 inches. the other thing we want to know is the u residents does have a 25-foot rear yard so if i look at this there's access to light air and mid block open space. the next exhibit -- one other thing i also want to.

>> this is looking at the back of our client's house in relation to the residents. the blue dash line is the existing profile and we've stepped it back to address concerns and this dark line is showing the rear wall and a hatched section and that setback five foot eight and there's another line that you will see. it's at the front of the house so that doesn't occur adjacent to the dr requestors. since the residents abuts our rear yard it's important to note we're not blocking any light or access to mid-block open space. the concern there is really just privacy. so we'll talk about that in a

second. this is the south elevation so this is what the d.r. requesters are looking at. the big takeaway is most of the area being added is a new basement. the existing first floor shown in green on the side facing the dr is below grade and below the fence. we're looking at the green and blue area where we're adding 46. the next one is the third there were plan which is the top floor plan on this project. the original in blue and the original design was in red so that complied with the planning code but there were concerns from the neighbors and rdat about the visual connection to mid block open space. since that meeting, with the neighbors and at the rtat we have setback the notch at the

top two levels throw feet. there was a concern about no light coming in and if we look at the corner house on this image, which is 2690 broadway it's a one story gorge so there's afternoon light coming in that yard. on our roof plan, we do have a small backyard in shade. we have proposed a roof deck to get access to sunlight and enjoy the same views that are enjoyed by the dr requesters. the area is about 750 square feet. it's set away from the dr requestors and it's setback 16.2 from the bay window and 39-foot four from the yu residents. again, the massing is setback at the corner so there's still some

visual connection from the yu residents. as recommended by david winslow, we also offered to move this rear wall back that setback 5'8". they were offering to move it all the way back to its existing location at the third floor but that was rejected by the neighbors. we also understand that the current staff report is recommending making this same change at the second and third floors and if we are required to make that change, we would request that it be at the third floor. the reason for that is if we switch to the next exhibit, what you will see is that the second flor, which we like to keep as proposed is at the basement level of yu level. so at the first floor where the bedrooms are and all the floors above that they're not going to be effected by that. the other things we want to note here is the relative height

difference and ms. yu favorite us photographs we used from our home so we did before and after exhibits when we met with her. and i think these are instructed what we're seeing on the left is the before image with the house in pink. you can see the view, access to open space or to public mid block open space and a view of alcatraz. if the proposed version, we still have light and air. we've reduced the view to mid block open space but it still occurs to the right of that post and there's also still a view of alcatraz. private views aren't protected and it was mentioned by the neighbors when we met with them so we wanted to show we were trying to preserve that. this next one is going up one flor in the yu residents.

this is her living room. you see our client's house in pink and then to the right, you are seeing the new project and this demonstrates there's essentially no difference in view, light or air from this level. and at the mess inine level they're up one there were. this is where there's a privacy issue the thing to note is there's an existing balcony that i would think already presents what they might consider a privacy issue in the new scheme, the roof deck is actually going to be setback a little bit so i think any privacy concerns are really no change from exiting to proposed and again in terms of light, air and that kind of thing there's no impact whatsoever.

how are we doing on time? i think that concludes our presentation. are there any questions? >> if there's any members of the public that want to testify in support of the project sponsor, now is the time. >> seeing none. the dr requestors you each get a two-minute rebuttal. >> laura will give the rebuttal we are happy to answer questions afterwards. >> hi, thank you all for listening today. i just want to keep it chick. privacy is a really big issue for us because we do live in that non confirming house. one of them that cindy mentioned

they were nice to rearrange it to be slightly further away so we appreciate that. but there's such a closeness there that we are really concerned about the privacy on our main living space. the houses were designed. all of the houses on that block were designed with contractual agreements that impact the way the house was designed and the way it was lived in and when we rebuilt, basically the kitchen and the living space are on a floor to take advantage of light and views absolutely but it's also just that main living area and there's an expectation that you have that privacy that came with those deeds and.

>> i just want to get those out. >> time is up many of. >> you are welcome. >> and dr requester number 2, you have two minutes. >> ok. thank you for listening to me. i'd like to show you a little drawing that i it again.

i am only concerned about the third there were of the project sponsors he's building. because this number one, is my building and my bedroom. i am not concerned about anything about views. i know that the planning code does not.

>> 99% of the design i approve and i'm happy they're going to build it. a small change for them is a huge impact on me. and that is why i'm here today to ask for your consideration. and to put it in light, this is the section wore talking about in terms of the mass this is very little it's just the end of the top third there were o floow building. i hope you will take this into consideration and help with the modifications that is needed before you approve the permit for them. thank you very much for your time. thank you. >> thank you, very much. that closes the public side of the hearing. i'll just start off by saying i'm in support of the proposed project minus half of the roof

deck. i would be ok keeping the front side of the roof deck. >> i'd like to also speak about the roof deck. the question to the architect, i see mechanical equipment, could you please come up? >> thank you. i see mechanical equipment indicated could you specify what it is? it is air-conditioned or heat pump? >> wore trying to get planning approval so we haven't engineered anything and i don't know if we'll do air-conditioning but it's heat pumps at the place holder for equipment but we have a section and a diagram. it's going to be below the level of i believe of the para pit and we'll to whatever best practices for noise. just anecdotally, the house on the corner has rooftop equipment on top of their garage adjacent and we to have any noise issues. >> i'm asking you questions and that's i do.

we would very much like to know as to whether or not you are doing aircondition. i'm sure a house of that kind of large set up, you know that already. the rules will change and i will ask mr. winslow to help us with that. if it's air-conditioned we're in a different ball game in comparison to heat condensers? >> i'm not a mechanic allen guinear it's well beyond my knowledge between the two and their sound. maybe you can can show that section again. >> there we go. >> so i think what this is showing is we have a wall which will block visual access and the other thing we would be happy to do if there's any criteria for sound transmission like they have in atherton if we need sound a ten youation on the wall or with partial cover, we're happy to do that. >> that aside for a moment, the

size of the roof deck, given that this commission has discussed roof decks for quite a few years and we're working with the department to establish policy, the roof deck is larger than a single family home in some cases in the city. i am concerned that this type of a roof deck given the neighborhood is creating more problems than anticipated. that is noise and visual interference with people who live slightly above ann an a jog streets. the commission has basically generically spoken about that one-third of the roof area is recommended in roof deck. >> one-third was proposal i believe that never went further than that but when we -- are

what wove done in the meantime, is we've adopted commonsense approach to looking at the roof deck in terms of size and locations. so, when we see large roof decks, it's naturally we assume there are large gatherings of people and nuisances from time to time and so we do troy and tend towards reducing that to the thing of a third or 500 square feet per that original roof deck policy. the non authorized roof deck policy. >> in this particular case, could you guide the commission a little bit your thoughts on which part of the building that would be best accommodated? >> given the key lot conditions of the adjacent properties and the proximity outlined by the dr requestors it could be more appropriately located towards

the front of the building without detriment to the users and nuisance to the dr requestors. >> i would agree with you and that would be for me, one of the conditions. i'm still trying to fully understand the concerns about dr requestor number two, speaking about being blocked and relative to the strange location of the key lot. is that anything you as a rd talked about? >> so in our rereview and subsequent negotiations i think we identified the recommendation in front of you which is incorrectly revised which was the third floor notching the third floor to the existing building until a point where the

existing buildings bay protrudes out. that allies with misused basement level if you will. it was a reduction to the roof deck would be the minimum i would suggest if we are taking dr so i'd like to make a motion we take dr. reduce the roof deck as outlined together with the notch on the third floor that you are already discussing with the applicant.

>> i'd like the architect to respond to what the appropriate line would be assuming we were in favor of reducing the roof deck, could you tell us? >> it's a good question. just to clarify a few things. these are two foot by two foot squares if we can get the roof plan up so just it's closer to 250 square feet which is probably a little more than a third of the area so, one proposal is to move the rear portion of the roof deck towards the front until we get to one-third. we would be happy to cut it in half and knock it back another 12 feet that means anybody on that roof deck could be further away from the bay window then they currently are on the balcony at the third floor. >> could i make an observation as well. typically the roof deck policy

has a 5 for th 5-foot setback. i'm not sure it makes sense to maintain that 5 for the setback as well as on the northern edge at the front. there's also a side setback separating you from the downhill neighbor. that might be a way of having, you know, having more area available to you and reducing the deck from the year. >> i think if i can can chime in. if i'm not mistaken, it's very specifically for the firefighters being able to access the roof. >> not to my knowledge. i only know about the one we imposed from our continued deliberations on roof decks. >> i would be supportive of maintaining that 5-foot and i thought one-third was too big for this roofdeck. i would support the commissioner

moore's position to notch the they had floothird flor at the d and we accept the reduction of the deck by the eastern portion of that from the stair be cut in half. >> just to clarify. when you say cut in half, are you talking about the line wove drawn on the image here? >> yes. >> thank you. >> so there is a motion and i did not hear a second. i did hear an alternate suggestion. >> i don't know if the motion clarified ex lo exactly what too with the roof deck. >> reduce it by they ha third t. >> mr. winslow, could you

just -- >> mr. winslow indicated is one-third or 500 square feet maximum or something like that but this is a little different. we're doing all the math. >> pull it forward here. >> please, mr. winslow. i will use the overhead. >> this is the outline proposed by commissioner moore as the roof deck. >> are you proposing that the front of it could move forward? >> yes, i would agree with mr. winslow it could move forward by two feet. that is still holding behin givt

more area. >> chair m. marquez: is everybody ok with that? >> is that part of your motion, commissioner moore. >> yes, it is. >> second. did that also encloud your comments. >> >> roughly. >> there's a motion that has been second-degree. on the motion, reduce the roof deck allowing a two foot extension forward and on the third floor. mr. winslow, a question, is the motion in words explicit enough to the degree of reduction on

the right side of the deck? i heard two feet but not the dough lynthedelineating commentt side. >> there was a diagram submitted into the record by mr. winslow that i believe he will use to address that. >> that would suffice otherwise the wordings does not express what we're saying. thank you. so moved, that passion passes 6 will have 0. >> thank you. >> we're adjourned.

>> okay, great. >> supervisor fewer: good afternoon, everyone. this is the march 11, 2020 meeting of the budget and appropriations committee. i am sandra fewer. our clerk is ms. linda wong. i would like to thank sfgovtv for broadcasting this tv. any announcements? >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices, complete speaker cards should be submitted to the

clerk. >> supervisor fewer: item number 1. hearing to review the report on the controller's office on the current year's expenditure and revenue information and projections as of december 31, 2019, six-month budget status report and the mayor's budget instructions for 20-21 and 21-22. >> supervisor fewer: we have a presentation from city controller on the six-month budget status report for the city and county of san francisco, which was released last month. i've asked mr. rosenfield to share early assessment of the impacts of covid-19 in the city, although we may not have yet definitive numbers, this committee should be informed in realtime about the financial picture of the city. thank you for sharing what you can today.

finally, i've asked mr. rosenfield to give us a brief overview of the new city website that is created since the passage of the budget transparency. thanks again for all the colleagues that signed on. i'm so proud our access during the budget process is being realized. since our legislation was passed in december, we have seen city departments, not just check off a box, but truly take on the challenge of holding public meetings to gain meaningful input. thanks to departments like the office of economic and workforce development, recreation and parks, and child support services for implementing new practices, inviting me to participate in your community presentations. these steps toward the goal of greater transparency for allocation of tax dollars are building on years of best budget

practices from departments like public health and will make the budget process stronger. this website is a powerful tool to help san francisco residents navigate the complex process, so i appreciate the effort from the contr controller's office to finalize it. with that, ben rosenfield from the controller's office. thank you. >> good morning, thank you for having us here today. this is certainly timely and so we look forward to not only talking through briefly some of the highlights from the six-month report which we published almost exactly a month ago. i'll talk through some of those updates and we'll provide you with updates we're seeing regarding events in the local economy here today and we can start talking here and elsewhere about what the financial implications are to the city.

we've got a couple of updates coming just to let folks know what is coming after this. our office is working on tax revenue ranging and updates related to covid in the current fiscal year. we hope to have that complete next week. at least for initial range. and then all three financial offices, our office, the board's budget and legislative office and the mayor's budget office are updating our projections of the next four years. that will be complete tend of the month. flu on the six-month report we publicish each year, we do see good news in the six-month report. i know we briefed many of you individually on this, about $98.1 million improvement in ending fund balance. i'll talk about how that applies to next year's fall forecast.

the majority of this good news is really being driven by two departments. so we have significant good news over $60 million in the department of public health as of six-month. and our human service agency $20 million. i'll talk about each of the departments in a membership and what is going on -- in a minute and what is going on there. i'll talk about taxes overall, but the big news is the continued strength we saw in the first half of the fiscal year related to transfer tax. we saw a number of large properties trade hands in the year, with payments in excess of $20 million for a single transaction, so we had a lot of strength there. under the way the city's reserves work, that volatile revenue, a significant portion, ends up deposited into a one-time reserve. and like i talked about most -- i'll talk about in a second, most other taxes are trending toward budget. at least as of six-month.

and there is some weakness in hotel and some in admissions tax as of the six-month mark. this is showing a picture of all the major tax revenues that we feel in the general fund. and you can kind of see on the far right chart -- column, how the 6-month projection various from -- varies from the 3-month projection. they're trending toward budget. you see that for property, for sales, for utility user tax, parking tax. and also how significant the real transfer tax news is. that is $71 million. but we're -- we weren't seeing a lot of change versus our other previous projections of major taxes. in terms of department, this gives you a summarized view of everything going on with all of the departments and the report itself contains much more

information, but overall, departments net improvement of approximately $90 million. you can see where that is falling across the departments, but public health and human services are the vast majority. i'll talk in a second about them and juvenile probation which i know is of interest to the committee and we do see issues halfway through the fiscal year. so, briefly, for the department of public health, this is summarizing that good news in health. halfway through the year. it's almost entirely on the revenue side and the majority of the good news at public health is driven at zuckerberg general hospital. so patient revenue continues to outpace expectations. and we did have some settlements of prior year claims resulted in one-time revenue at the general hospital. another thing for us to keep an

eye on here, as you may know, the waiver that the state has with the federal government for many different kinds of health services expires at the end of this calendar year. there is a lot of work going on in public health departments throughout the country to organize for the renegotiation of that waiver next year. but one important fact is that the state is in the process of completing many years of audits of prior year claims. we have money set aside to guard against adverse findings in the audits and we've been waiting years for the audits to be completed. we're hopeful that with the speedup of the state completing the audit processes, will not only have certainty on these sometime before the waiver expires, but we're hoping to have good news. so we don't have certainty on that, but it's one we're keeping our eyes on, health is tracking and we'll continue to update as we get news on that.

within the human service agency, $20 million net surplus. you can see here that the single biggest change here relates to the way the i.h.s.s. works, that requirement with the state and there were final changes at the end of the state budget process that are favorable to us for about $13 million and $7 million of other savings largely related under spending in a few programs. in terms of juvenile probation, the big issue we see here stems at the end of last fiscal year and it's largely, i think, an administrative capacity issue. i think we have remedied now as a city, but as of 6-month mark, the department was operating without a number of key positions in their finance shop. and as a result, the department wasn't claiming federal and state revenue in the way they should have been. since that time, there is a new

finance director appointed at juvenile probation. we've assigned accountness and there is a budget manager on loan to them. so we're feeling more hopeful about the stabilization of the function in juvenile and i would hope to see the number come down by the time we get to the 9-month mark. as always, we note in the report where departments are projected to live within their budget, but within that budget overspend their overtime line item. as you know to the extent the department wants to do that, they have to come back to the board of supervisors for reappropriations. these are the departments at the 6-month mark we expect will need to come back to the board for approximate -- for permission or change behavior in the coming months. a quick summary as of the 6-month mark, how does this fit in with the story regarding the budget deficit? as you know, the three offices

publish projections in the early winter of $419 million projected shortfall over two years. the city's general practice for many years has been to take savings that occur in one year and apply it to the shortfall for next year. if that is the choice that is made -- i would expect it would be -- you would have to take the $98 million from the 6-month report, apply to the previous projection and that brings us down to $321 million. obviously, we'll continue to update a lot of this as we go. this is changed obviously given just this week. but the official next update to the projection itself is the joint report which our three offices will publish at the end of march. so i'm happy to take questions on 6-month mark, or i can move into covid.

>> supervisor fewer: i see supervisor ronen, but do we need a report from the b.l.a., anything to report at all? no. thank you very much. supervisor ronen. >> supervisor ronen: yes, thank you. thank you for this. for the department of public health higher than anticipated budget, does any of that have to do with salary savings? >> i believe actually -- no i believe we're projecting that the department is spending at the general to budgeted levels. so, at the 6-month mark -- and we'll update this at nine months -- but at the 6-month mark laguna was spending -- we were expecting them to spend to the budget.

the general hospital is actually -- because they have a higher census than assumed, they're actually overspending their salary budget by $5.8 million which is more than offset by $50 million in revenue improvement. then they do have expenditures savings in the other parts of the department. so not the general, not laguna, but population health, mental health, et cetera. >> supervisor ronen: do we know how much salary savings? >> it's about $5 million in total uses savings. i don't have at my finger tips how much of that is salary, but we could follow up and get that to you. >> supervisor ronen: okay. and then in -- for h.s.a., why are we under-spending in cal

works and medi-cal. >> this is savings. >> supervisor ronen: do we have a sense of why that is happening, because we clearly have the need? >> i don't, but could follow up with. generally speaking, these different aid programs have defined criteria as to who is eligible to participate. and to the extent that you project how much participation they'll see, to the extent that participation is higher or lower than that, you see that in our reports. >> supervisor ronen: i'd like to know why, because it could be that everyone who is eligible signed up for it could be that we have a problem recruiting and making people feel safe to sign up for the benefits. so it would be great -- >> we would be happy to follow up and get more information for you. >> supervisor ronen: okay. then do we know why juvenile probation was operating without

two key finance positions that were delayed $6 million in federal and state funding? was that an h.r. problem? was that a department-wide problem? or the delays from central h.r. which is happening in practically every department. >> my impression is this almost entirely driven by issues internal the department. it was kind of an extraordinary moment. it's kind of what has led us to take actions with the new chief to assign temporary help there to help with these things. i personally attribute it to management personnel and operational issues within the department this last summer. >> supervisor ronen: what was the time period these positions were open and we were failing to fill federal and state -- bill federal and state government? >> the period we're seeing the delayed claims was the very end

of last fiscal year through this fall. this is not lost money to the city. it's just -- we will now have a endeavor to reach back and claim for those prior periods and we have with the new chief and with our team and other assistants, we have a group that is working this issue as we speak. does that help? if there aren't other questions, i'll move into what we're seeing this week. this is an extremely dynamic situation and evolving both from a public health perspective and then our monitoring of what the implications might mean for the local economy, revenues and the rest. in our work, we rely on a host of official data points that are often lagged from when the event occurs. unemployment claims, actual tax

filings, reporting from the fed. we won't see some of that data for weeks and months. so in moments like this, we really look to a number of different proxies quickly to get a feel for what is going on. we've been doing an extraordinary amount of that last weekend and through this week. so i'm sharing with you, the early data points. we can talk about the things we're looking at and working on and i'll have more information regarding the tax revenue implications of a lot of this again within the next week. a few issues of great concern. so, prior to the emergency in san francisco, we had already begun to see declines in landings at the airport, predominantly impacted by china and asia. you'd already seen notable drop-off in landings last winter

and into the spring. we commented on these in the 6-month report, but you started to see a slowing of tourism into san francisco and the u.s. from china, but that has changed dramatically in the last week. landings at the general -- at s.f.o. this week are down 20%. thus far this week for international flights. and we're seeing it in domestic travel as well. so domestic landings at the airport are down 12% this week. that is landings. that's the number of planes landing. we're endeavoring to get better information from the airlines and we expect to have it soon to the number of people on those planes, but it's being reported that those planes arriving are arriving with fewer people as well than a week ago. the actual number of visitors coming to san francisco or others coming to san francisco is likely higher than this. the most immediate impact of this here within the borders of

san francisco and i think we felt this profoundly already this week, relates to convention business. and then spilling over from there into other parts of the hospitality sector. at this point event sponsors have cancelled all conventions at the moscone through the middle of may. the cancelled conventions account for 235,000 room nights which is a very large number. we have been spending time this week talking to hotels downtown to understand what is going on with their businesses this week. they've seen spikes in cancellations, monday, tuesday and even this morning this week. the rate of those cancellations is accelerating. and it is reported information to us, but many hotels downtown,

if not most hotels are reporting this week they're now operating at occupancy rates of 20-30%. that's versus the standard that we've grown used to for many years in the city of 80-85%. so even this quickly our hotels are emptying out quickly. this kind of level of occupancy is actually worse than what we felt immediately after september 11 to put it into context. we've been talking to other industries that support hotels and wraparound hotels, catering, other services, special events and the rest. and they have almost uniformly thus far reported to us a mass cancellation of almost all of their business. this is obviously a large part of our local economy. hotels, hospitality and supporting services and employs

a large number of people. hotels directly employ 25,000 people in san francisco. and these associated industries that wraparound, depending on how you count them, are tens of thousands of employees beyond that. so very significant and very immediate impacts. and the lack of any convention business for several months means that we should expect that these kinds of impacts -- maybe not at these levels -- but significant, will linger for sometime. we've also seen this week things beginning to spill over beyond hospitality into other parts of the economy. a couple of indicators we look to for kind of people coming to san francisco and shopping, not from airports, not from the airport but within the region, bart ridership was down 9% last week.

exits at downtown bart stations over the weekend, which is where we're comparing last weekend versus the weekend before, we're down more than 9%. so in the low double digits. and then this week, on monday, bart exits downtown were down 24%, versus the monday. very significant slowdowns. happening again quickly. this is somewhat related to very large decisions being made by some of our employers in the san francisco consistent with public health advice to encourage telecommuting. so you see large offices downtown and large employers encouraging their employees to work remotely and that means less traffic into downtown and the city from the rest of the region. over the weekend, you know, one thing we can look at realtime information about what is going

on in some of the districts in terms of activity is sampling parking garage occupancy rates. last weekend, it varies significantly garage by garage, but vacancies rates in the garages were up 20-40% from the weekend before. so very significant changes. and it's really most pronounced in a few neighborhoods. downtown, civic center garage, given the cancellations in the civic center and chinatown, chinatown north beach. at least in terms of the weekend work. we have been spending time this week talking to a number of restaurants and restaurant associations to understand kind of what they're reporting and seeing in the first few days of the week. and there is a broad number of restaurants reporting very significant declines in the sales thus far this week. it appears to be a bit of a

different picture. again, downtown, chinatown, kind of places the tourists go, places that office workers eat, are reporting -- some are reporting losses in excess of 50% or more in terms of this week's sales. as we get out into neighborhoods where people are potentially staying because they're telecommuting or otherwise, the losses feel less pronounced. and with some reporting -- some businesses reporting no loss and no losses so far, bar service, out of the neighborhoods. and then the other thing to note, of course, that restaurants, this is not just spilling into restaurant, but other small retailers, other retail activity. kind of feeling in that same shape. a very bad week, but worse for those located in the core or in certain downtown neighborhoods. we will know much more about

these things in days and weeks ahead, both in terms of the data we have access to, but we also expect more news regarding what the shape of this might be looking ahead. obviously, there is questions here about -- two key questions are -- and i think they're both predominantly related to how the health emergency plays out, they're ones of duration. and then how spillover works out of these industries into the rest of the local economy and potentially into the national economy? that would then potentially impact other parts of the economy that we're not seeing losses this week, office work, professional services, a whole host of other industries that this week are doing okay. and continue to operate. we will come back next week with some updated ranges of current year tax revenue losses, but just to give you a sense of what we're expecting to see, and

again, here we're focusing on the coming quarter. the last four months of the year, three months of the year. and i think the losses we're likely to feel are going to be concentrated in these places. so hotel tax declines are obviously going to be very significant given the occupancy rates i mentioned earlier. and probably in the current year is going to be the significant impact the city feels, but we would expect to see losses in sales tax, maybe parking tax and others in this coming quarter. interest earnings. the money that the city earns on our treasury is expected to decline significantly as well because the federal government has now cut the fed interest rate in an effort to stimulate investment. that means that we earn less money on our earned cash, so we're quantifying that. and you may see additional

federal interest rate cuts in weeks ahead which will further erode that. the airport transfer we received from the airport will be down in the current fiscal year and we expect to see others. we'll have more on this and we will not have a hard number, but we think it's important to present a range of numbers to the board of supervisors, mayors and others can begin planning how to manage this. we will see other impacts that will be deferred to next year, given the way taxes are paid and how this plays out. so business tax, for example, is almost predominantly paid activity now, the tax paid on it will be paid next spring. so that will be a deferred impact. it won't hit the current year, it will hit next year. and we'll have other implications we'll include in the later update. i think the loss in the coming quarter will be in the tens of millions, the question is how many? and i hope to have some sense of

that next week. >> supervisor fewer: any members of the public? hello. >> the supervisors, i represent the first people of san francisco, and right here on this podium the chair person rosemary addressed all the supervisors and gave you all some counsel. we've reached a stage in this city and county of san francisco where corruption has reached more than saturation point. so when the controller is saying something about this pandemic, if you go to the general

hospital, the turnover of our nurses is over 80%. and if we have the need to have beds for 500 people, that's a minimum -- because of my training in the military with logistics and all -- we have like 80 beds. and we have a middle class living on the streets of san francisco. and we have our supervisors listening, saying something, but it means nothing because we cannot say -- [bell ringing] -- that we represent the people when we don't do anything for them. obviously there is a pool of money there that general hospital has saved and the human resources has saved and that is fine, because you know, if you bring ten cpas each one will

give is own accounting. if you want, you can say yes or say no. but the bottom line here, supervisors, is you must represent -- [bell ringing] -- the people. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. any more public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. president yee? >> president yee: thank you, chair fewer. thanks for the presentation. and it's good that we had a good projection for the six-month report. hopefully that offsets some of the bad news coming, moving forward. the question that -- i mean, all that stuff is really hard to predict and the problem is we don't know how long it's going to last. in regards to working with the

convention center, for instance, they've -- there has been a lot of conventions that have cancelled. i'm curious, how far into the future are people starting to cancel? just to give us a sense of what we're looking at. you know, if they're cancelling things three or four months out, i would say we're really in trouble. >> yes. and we can report back more, but all sponsors -- not the city -- have now cancelled all conventions at the muss coney through may 15th. there are cancellations beyond that. i don't know the count. there are some. and i think there is some hope, depending on how this works that some of the conventions cancelled can be slotted into other slots next fiscal year, but that depends entirely on how

our health emergency plays out over the coming weeks and months. >> president yee: okay. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: yes, assuming that -- is san francisco -- if san francisco decided to go the route of milan and shut down the entire city, would you give us a sense, in addition to what you've already described, what additional economic impacts there would be? i know it's enormous, but just get our wheels turning. >> yeah, and this is certainly -- i don't want to speculate too quickly here in the moment, but these are kind of questions we're asking ourselves related to projections looking ahead, whether the arc of different possible outcomes from a health perspective? what are likely interventions in these scenarios?

and in protecting public health, by design almost, it avoids interactions and causes other damage, right. so we're talking through that. i don't want to speculate. it would be profound though. already i believe in the sectors we're talking about, there is going to be quickly discussions of closures. you're going to have cash crunches in many of the businesses that are affected. businesses are very quickly going to phase decisions related to their estimate of what they think the duration of this is and whether it would be in the business's financial best interests to simply close for a month. i would not be surprised if hotels are having that conversation. i think restaurants in the city are likely already having that conversation. and the broader the kind of public health response needs to be, the more profound those kinds of choices spread to every part of the economy. every part of our business base. and all of their workers.

so i don't want to speculate, but it would be profound. >> supervisor ronen: have you been studying what is happening in italy and wuhan? >> some. i know the health experts have been working on that more feverishly than we have been in the last few days. >> supervisor ronen: definitely, they're studying the public health impacts, but the economic impacts, kind of what are the measures that those economies are taking? >> they're extreme and they have profound impacts. i have not been to this point this week reviewing the specific economics, but more considering what the public health interventions would and then thinking through with our team and others what would the application of that kind of a rule mean in san francisco? in top level results, you can

see impacts to top line, bottom line, indicators in china. china has had a negative qter for last year in terms of their g.d.p. growth. i believe that was the first negative quarter in over 20 years. and i think that's entirely driven off of their public health response. if that gives us some sense. >> supervisor fewer: seeing no more comments. thank you very much. is there another presentation? no, i think we're done. >> i can very quickly show this new tool off if that is helpful, madame chair. >> supervisor fewer: one good news thing. >> yes, a better topic to end with today, or a little more cheerful anyway. thank you for giving us this opportunity to do this. as you're aware, chair fewer,

the supervisor mar, the sful full board adopted legislation for transparency and required our office to create a website where people interested in the budget process would have access to some of the time lines, tools, meetings and reporting in a centralized way. so thank you very much to the digital services team and the city administrator's office, reesa sandler and others in the budget group. we got that site up and live on march 1. it's on the top level of the sf gov website. we've tried to keep it very simple to make it publicly accessible as possible. it's a single landing page. plain language, descriptions of the budget process, a calendar and then department budgets. drilling into this a little bit, for example, for the timeline,

the process used to develop the budget, which i think is one of your goals, chair fewer, has been increased understanding of how that process works and participation in it. there is a simple timeline that shows the different steps of the budget production process. and in each of these cases, there are links to the key documents that -- official documents that are considered. for example, the mayor's budget instructions here. budget and legislative analyst reports at a later time. the budget book. the proposed budget. the last thing -- and there are host of other documents archived here for ease of people to find them from the public. and then lastly -- i'm sorry --

lastly, because i know it's important to the board and to the members, all department budget submissions that have come into our office and the mayor's office are available on the site for review. >> supervisor fewer: i just want to say i think this is fabulous. we've had people go on to this website and they're just fascinated by the city budget now. like i think it was such a huge thing that most people, lay persons, myself included, didn't understand. and i think this really makes it accessible to every taxpayer in san francisco. which is our goal. thank you. and any other comments from my colleagues? none? okay. i'd like to make a motion then to file this item. >> second? >> president yee, take that without objection. thank you very much. any other business before us today? >> no further business.

>> supervisor fewer: thank you very much, we're adjourned. >> how i really started my advocacy was through my own personal experiences with discrimination as a trans person. and when i came out as trans, you know, i experienced discrimination in the workplace. they refused to let me use the women's bathroom and fired me. there were so many barriers that other trans folks had in the workplace. and so when i finished college, i moved out to san francisco in the hopes of finding a safer

community. >> and also, i want to recognize our amazing trans advisory committee who advises our office as well as the mayor, so our transadvisory community members, if they could raise their hands and you could give a little love to them. [applause] >> thank you so much for your help. my leadership here at the office is engaging the mayor and leadership with our lgbt community. we also get to support, like, local policy and make sure that that is implemented, from

all-gender bathrooms to making sure that there's lgbt data collection across the city. get to do a lot of great events in trans awareness month. >> transgender people really need representation in politics of all kinds, and i'm so grateful for clair farley because she represents us so intelligently. >> i would like to take a moment of silence to honor all those folks that nicky mentioned that we've lost this year. >> i came out when i was 18 as trans and grew up as gay in missoula, montana. so as you can imagine, it wasn't the safest environment for lgbt folks. i had a pretty supportive

family. i have an identical twin, and so we really were able to support each other. once i moved away from home and started college, i was really able to recognize my own value and what i had to offer, and i think that for me was one of the biggest challenges is kind of facing so many barriers, even with all the privilege and access that i had. it was how can i make sure that i transform those challenges into really helping other people. we're celebrating transgender awareness month, and within that, we recognize transgender day of remembrance, which is a memorial of those that we have lost due to transgender violence, which within the last year, 2019, we've lost 22 transgender folks. think all but one are transgender women of color who have been murdered across the

country. i think it's important because we get to lift up their stories, and bring attention to the attacks and violence that are still taking place. we push back against washington. that kind of impact is starting to impact trans black folks, so it's important for our office to advocate and recognize, and come together and really remember our strength and resilience. as the only acting director of a city department in the country, i feel like there's a lot of pressure, but working through my own challenges and barriers and even my own self-doubt, i think i've been try to remember that the action

is about helping our community, whether that's making sure the community is housed, making sure they have access to health care, and using kind of my access and privilege to make change. >> i would like to say something about clair farley. she has really inspired me. i was a nurse and became disabled. before i transitioned and after i transitioned, i didn't know what i wanted to do. i'm back at college, and clair farley has really impressed on me to have a voice and to have agency, you have to have an education. >> mayor breed has led this effort. she made a $2.3 million investment into trans homes, and she spear headed this effort in partnership with my office and tony, and we're so proud to have a mayor who continues to commit and really make sure that everyone in this

city can thrive. >> our community has the most resources, and i'm very happy to be here and to have a place finally to call home. thank you. [applause] >> one, two, three. [applause] >> even in those moments when i do feel kind of alone or unseen or doubt myself, i take a look at the community and the power of the supportive allies that are at the table that really help me to push past that. being yourself, it's the word of wisdom i would give anyone. surely be patient with yourself and your dream. knowing that love, you may not always feel that from your family around you, but you can

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families together and if we can bring that family to your business, you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e

community. >> we have a ten-person limb elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting.

>> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. >> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. i hope people shop locally. [ ♪ ]