over arching equitable strategy integrated here. first, i do want to repeat our concern about the use of some of the maps here such as the s.f. bay area gentrification and displacement map and the priority equity geographies map to make critical equity decisions around funding and policy. better mapping is already available or could be created with community and as far as we know the maps haven't been vetted nor necessarily accept bipoc neighborhoods as a tool for centering the equitable development. prior geographies map, for example, just to point out is missing critical vulnerable areas class and some home to

displacement. we would need to see that integrated and brought together in a policy preferably under a better mapping system that captures the needs of those communities. second, i'll say quickly an example of other larger scale policies that significantly impact housing and equitable development that are maybe not as directly related but part of the major cultural eco system is for example the significant ongoing loss of blue collar space on the east side. coupling with the huge influx of high-income earners we can see those are clearly a cause and effect we can intervene on. seems like even potentially low-hanging fruit to intervene. thank you. i appreciate it. >> hi, my name is ira chaplain.

i live in north beach. i'm excited about this element. the goals and policies are postally pretty good a couple concerns. primarily related to climate change and the impact. the board of supervisors has declared a climate emergency and we have a climate action plan. one of the best things we can do in order to address the climate emergency i didn't see mentioned here at all is just get as many people as possible living in san francisco because in san francisco you can walk places and take transit places and bike places and you don't need to use air-conditioning. you don't need to use very much heat and so for all those reasons, san francisco's one of

the most environmentally friendly places for people to live and any housing unit that doesn't get built in san francisco gets built in suburban sprawl or another state with a less favorable climate. they those people don't go away they just have a higher carbon footprint so the 82,000 new homes is a floor not a target or goal. in order to address climate change we should go beyond the 82,000 and get millions of people living in san francisco not just another 150,000 or so. thank you. >> district 5 housing advocate.

it's difficult to consider in a week but here's some observations. the first is whatever draft 2 is trying to say, much is lost in an ocean of contradictions, conflicts, cries for help. unanswered questions, impossibilities and aspirations. without a clear means of fulfillment. the only clarity is the laudable intention of racial and social equity. the report is truly unprecedented gathering of community input. so there's much eye-opening truth in the community input section. you hear over and over there's the proposed 80,000. vulnerable communities have

repeated zieshz to lead on development question but there's no real means of achievement. and i ask the commissioners to examine all input and every one of the 200 actions before giving a blanket approval. it's not part of general plan and commissioners, you're our safeguards. please do not commit the city to this document blindly by default. >> i'm bruce wolfe with care community land trust. this is to update the next housing element draft so it

truly centers equity for bipoc and low-income communities. the coalition envisions and woshz for new complil and social systems that prioritize the stability and aspirations of our bipoc and low income communities and place the needs of the people over developers' desire for profit. this housing element draft you are discussing works directly against this vision. during the last element cycle the san francisco park exceeding the production mandate based on the needs of production and mandates for prior housing element, san francisco produced far less affordable housing than required and produced an excess of market rate housing. based on the failure the housing element for 2020 can promote in

housing before market race housing. this would need to be coupled with an aggressive resource development plan associated from the production of market rate housing since these two types of development compete for the same scarce land. the eight-year housing element cycle over producing market-rate housing only makes housing more expensive. the city's response to those who are without homes is not based in equity when the essence of what the city is responding to is homelessness and we'll never achieve equity but clearing sidewalks is the goal of dignified options. we urge you all to update the next draft so it truly centers -- [chime] >> thank you.

>> good afternoon. i'm speaking on behalf of myself as an individual and as a board member in action. i'm calling today because i think there's work to do but i like the draft and want to thank you for the time in looking at the critical issue here and the fact we need to build more homes. we're just talking about one cycle but we can look back for decades how san francisco has shirked its responsibility and it impacts people up and down the peninsula and deep in the east bay as we push people out. and i read an article that read like it could have been written yesterday about how people were being moved or moving further and further out to find affordable housing and priced in the longer commutes.

we have an obligation as others have noted to build more homes for the people who are here now and the people who will be coming like me, a trans woman who moved to san francisco because it's a place that has a lot of opportunity for me to be myself. i see so many young we're queer people and can't find housing and opportunity like people were able to decades ago. we can create that city. it's in our hands. the opportunity to be an lgbtq mecca we know we are and doesn't displace people or makt impossible to move here. -- make it impossible to move here. that's one of the benefits of building the number of homes we need to in the next cycle. thank you.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm with united to save the mission a member of the race and equity and all planning coalition. this housing element draft you're discussing works directly against any vision of equity for low-income and bipoc community. all it incorporates aspirational equity and historical harms done to bipoc communities and the draft does nothing to address the structural issues and political action that continue to prioritize profit-driven development and continue to allow low-income bipoc communities to be devastate gentrification. draft 2 is just a blueprint to streamline profit-driven market rate housing development and does not make compensation for the egregious deficit we have

been living through since the adoption of the previous housing element. we'll continue to see the same inequitable outcomes and residents into overcrowded communal housing and residents forced into houselessness. until we change course and work to right structural inequities. this draft is nothing to be excited about unless you want to continue to eradicate bipoc opportunities. make today the day that this course is changed. update next housing element draft significantly and allow at least three weeks for our communities to review the next draft sow our communities can participate in a meaningful way.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is robert huffman. i live in district 5. i'm calling because the department has been working and complying with state law but it's not there yet. i'd like to point out the plan department has not detailed plans to comply with that streamlining act. the city's own website for the last 20 years has said the city does not comply with the permanent streamlining act and has no plans to do so. the city is in violation of state law and the city should not need to fix this before it submits a housing element to california h.c.d. it was only november when the

city has a meeting on the housing imbalance well north of 100,000 units. the last decade it was around 200,000 we were short and needs to be mentioned en our housing needs assessment. i'd like to note we're not on track to meet the obligations for the next cycle under the income categories. there are significant government constraints to be addressed including discretionary review from the u.c. berkeley report shows from 2014 to 2017, san francisco that'd highest median housing in the state in 26 months. this represents a significant constraint to housing production and must be addressed. further, the draft does not mention social housing. san francisco has the resource to implement a well-funded, well

planned social housing regime and san francisco there's no mention in that in this draft. we need social housing and have the authorization from voters in prop k. we need to get this done. everyone is talking about needing more affordable housing and cost and subsidized social housing is a plan that works. it works in many communities and we need that here. thank you. >> good afternoon. this plan needs to be updated. there's a lot of policy statement. these are policy statements that are supposed to benefit communities of color and this is

a sheet. i remember it was created with a latinx community and became a policy statement to develop funding for policy statements and sat on the shelves of the planning department and planning commissioners never went back to look at the policy statements and since that time we lost 11,000 latinx community members in the commission. if it's not in code or zoning it seems like it's happening all over again. and we experienced this in the past and seems to be happening again. the priority to benefit low-income communities is to benefit low-income communities and has to be code and zoned. thank you.

>> i'm an attorney interest costa county. h.c.d. knows san francisco can act on development. we must describe and analyze the process and application to approvals conclusiving the time frame for each in the process. have fun doing that. the current draft doesn't do any of that and a little bit from the board of supervisors website talking about stream lining it. the planning department is not in compliance with the project of applications and the department doesn't have a time line in place. i encourage you to make sure the next draft complies and otherwise i look forward to the

housing element. thank you for your time. >> hi, any name is laura. the executive director of action and we're following housing elements across the state. and so from that perspective i think one thing that i want to commend the san francisco planning department on really actually trying to look into the spirit of the law and ask what does this men for san francisco and try to get a lot of the values because planning is a political argument. and trying to get as many of those big picture values embedded in the document is a great ambition. i think people are ready for next level of technicality in it and a hear that whether you like the framework or not, people are ready for the next level of technicality and i think that's

exactly on schedule so congratulations for that. in that level of technicality i want to add more people are worried about development that causes displacement and the technicality we're going need to assuage some of those fears is strong objective tenant protections especially to make sure we're building on the parking lots and allowing a home owner to be building housing. we're allowing low industrial buildings to become multi-industrial housing and as a renter in a rent-controlled apartment we want it see controls and see tenants protected so we can pursue development without displacement and that's a lot of specificity. i think when it comes map people are worried because we may have a high-income community with low-income people in it and that's where the standards need

to be clear. thank you so much. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm with the race and equity planning coalition. we urge you to update the next housing element draft so it truly centers equity for bipoc and low-income communities. it envisions a san francisco that empowers historically marginalized communities to determine our future and solve issues of displacement on inaffordability and inequality. and we've been track the housing 2022 element to make sure it influences the shape of housing in our city. and reviewing the draft has been challenging due to the limited time frame for reviewing the 100 page document make it difficult for our community to read and digest and engage in the process and draft. for the housing element set to be released in april, our

communities request at least three weeks to review the draft before it comes to the planning commission for discussion. this incorporates language around equity and historical harms but doesn't address the changing the underlying structural issues, bureaucratic and political action that continue to prioritize profit and exclude the voice of bipoc and low inform income communities. the strategies have been insufficient. we're concern the draft as an overelicense -- reliance on policies and not give the solutions we need. we urge to you update the daft so it materially centers why the for bipoc and low-income communities. thank you.

>> hi. last year i co-authored a research paper and found s.f. is on track to develop 7% of the cycle inventory and look at the likelihood of on site development and that informs the zoning capacity you can claim from the site and inventory. at an outreach staff said they had done modelling and my question is whether they plan on using the modelling. i think it would be helpful to have a realistic plan to hit targets and avoid further displacement from increased rents. thank you.

>> hi, there. i'm a west side tenant living in rent controlled housing in the city. in addition to being a local residents i also wrote and negotiated senate bills 828 and 835 during the years i worked for scott weiner. i'll stay away from the technical details and focus on reminding the commissioners the comments de crying the housing requirements are the base that closed once the state laws were written and negotiated and adopted by democratically elected officials with significant community input. should the city not adopt an adequate housing plan on time to makes room for over 80,000 housing units, the consequences to disadvantaged communities in san francisco and all communities in the city are

enormous. the state of california will take control of the significant share of san francisco's permitting and zoning. the state will open the city up to significant litigation risk from the attorney general and remove funding. this does not get us closer to racial and economic equity in san francisco and beyond. it would be valuable for those who oppose the draft propose a compliant approach in lieu of what was presented. absent that, we're en route to losing public funding for services and losing power for permitting in the city. i hope the board and advocates remain focussed on these critical feedback to the planning department as community debate and discussion proceeds this year and i want to thank everyone for their time particularly the planning

department staff that i know has been spending a lot of time working on this as well as the commissioners entertain ing a long and colorful debate. >> i want to comment the planning department and i like policy 20 and policy 25. the most important part is the list of sites that are zoned for housing and the probability of development giving the housing cost. housing element without the list of sites is not complete and i'm not sure whether four units per lot are enough.

maybe we need eight to meet our goals. maybe based on the building code requirements it may be most feasible to build more than four. we should think through the interaction of the building and planning code to see whether this is actually feasible. i agree with laura foote we should have objective demolition control to protect tenants and add we should reform planning code 373 to make it easier to renovate or rebuild housing that does not replace tenants. thank you. please continue with the process. >> last call for public comment on the item. press star 3.

>> is this adam from district 6. i wanted to encourage moving this forward in the process. i think it's a great start. san francisco desperately needs new housing. we've needed new housing for decades. this is not something that should be a surprise. you can go back to the '50s and '70s and see it. harvey milk was famously quoted as saying we've got to do something to build more housing. until you build more housing this ordinance and anything else you talk about is meaningless. we have to do more. that was harvey milk in an interview in 1976. we're in 2022 and harvey milk's comments could apply today. the more we delay the worse it will get and the more we need to dig in. we need strong protections for renters.

we need to have demolition controls and make sure the spectrum across the board from affordable housing to moderate is all taken care of. ultimately though what let's all this happen is having the housing in the first place. if we don't build the housing, all we're doing is protecting the value of home owners and land owners. the people who own homes now and own buildings now are going to benefit at the expense of everyone else. we should listen to harvey milk and move forward. thank you. >> my name is steve marzo. i'm a home owner in the ingleside neighborhood. i have seen housing

affordability getting worse every year. we hear we need to only build 100% affordable housing and nothing else. we tried that and look where it's gotten us. i'm asking you today to change the status quo. don't be satisfied with the way we've tried things through the decades. this is our chance to change the direction of the city and we can do that by certifying a housing element that will realistically build 80,000 homes and i believe you folks can have the courage to pass that. the city is, i believe, changing. [please stand by].

it's hard to think of a single contemporary of mine who is thinking of staying in this city long term and the reasoning is the same and it's become so obvious that it hardly needs to be stated anymore. the cost of housing in this

city is intenable and that's not a good thing and i suggest fundamentally -- it's suggested fundamentally we as a city need to change course. the city is legally required to have a plan to build roughly 80,000 new homes, frankly, we should be viewing that as a floor, not a ceiling. i want to thank their planning staff for their work so far and encourage them to draft strategies including for more housing and parts of the cities that haven't been getting their fair share like the west side. considering where we are, the city should be working to craft a housing element that has held up as a standard throughout the state for focusing on one fundamental goal, realistic actionable plans for more new housing and more new neighbors.

>> caller: hello. [ indiscernible ] >> commissioner: we cannot hear her. >> secretary: ma'am, can you speak up a bit. >> caller: can you mere me now? >> commissioner: no. >> caller: can you hear me now. >> secretary: yes, that's much better. >> caller: okay. thank you. there's a lot of lovely policies in this plan and it's promising, but where are the dollars? it's all very well to tell the city of san francisco to produce 80,000 new homes, but, a, who's going to pay for it. we're not going to achieve the housing that the city has

called for. why has the city fought the state about the e debris jous amount of housing that's being proposed for san francisco. that's something that i appreciate and want to make sure that we have equity in our housing that just telling san francisco and the planning department to wave their magic wander and produce housing is not going to do it. where's the money? sacramento, if you want to tell us to do it, give us the money and then we will build the stuff ourselves or our affordable housing partners.

thank you. >> caller: hello. i live in oakland and as you know, sf is apart of the bay area economy. many people are commuting far for jobs and contributing to green house gases and causing adverse effects to climate change. i implore you to up zone san francisco so that we can do something about this climate catastrophe that we're headed on. thank you so much for your time. >> caller: good afternoon, commissioners. my name is mike chen, i'm a resident of san francisco in district two and i'm a renter. i'm not a native. i moved here to san francisco about seven years ago and, you know, i am very fortunate to have that opportunity and san francisco's been a great place

and if you've grown up here and friends and families are here, it's communities that you find and that's something that's really special to me as a gay man, as someone of chinese descent and as an american, there aren't that many places that have a community of folks of queer asian people and so that's one thing that made san francisco really special to me and what's really frustrating is that that window of opportunity is closing for more and more people. it's harder and harder for folks to find their communities. folks who feel they're the outsiders in places where i grew up like in ohio or in the midwest to be able to find their community of place in san francisco where we have so many great things. so i implore you and i congratulate the staff for doing this and i hope to be as aggressive as possible to the -- to really make sure we incorporate realistic probability of development to make sure we distribute our

housing equitably and across opportunity and across our neighborhoods. thank you very much. >> secretary: okay. final last call for public comment. again, you need to press star three to be added to the queue. >> caller: hello. my name is emily crow. i'm an architect working primarily on 100% affordable housing projects in sf and i'm also working on market rates in sf and i just want to say the policy goals for 142619 are spot on. really fantastic. as mentioned, 80,000 units are required to be built and i think you've done an excellent job listening to the desires of

the community as well as the need of the community. there's never going to be a solution that every single individual of what you've put together is an enormous step in the right direction. we can't continue to do what we've been doing and affordable housing being built on the west side has helped us get to the state that we're in today. those policies proposals are a complete breath of fresh air and hope that maybe my family some day will have a place of our own and on a personal note, i know several couples that have nearly or actually fallen apart because of the lack of housing in san francisco. one person can't imagine leaving ever and the other person says, look, this other place is going to be more welcoming to us. this place is going to let us come in so that we can have our lives and our families without immense personal struggle and

personal compromise. so it's best to answer that question for yourself, but the policy that you're proposing here give me hope that that type of struggle will be less and less common for san franciscans in the future. so 100% in agreement and please continue moving forward with the 80,000 units as a baseline that we can only go forward from. thanks. >> caller: hello. i'm a resident of district two and i'm calling in to encourage everyone involved to up zone as radically as possible in san francisco. i'm personally on a quest to get to know every single street having moveded here two and a

half years ago. and what i see is that 70% of the city looks like they're the suburbs. and my hope would be that by creating more density, more walkable neighborhoods, not only can we address our climate crisis, and also just make san francisco a much more livable place for everyone, where you can walk one block down to get all the needs in your life and be a true city. thank you. >> secretary: okay, commissioners. that concludes public comment. and it is now open for your deliberation. i take it back. there is another person requesting to speak. >> last person. >> caller: hi. my name is kevin burke. sorry, i couldn't figure out the public comment system. i'm a volunteer in east bay.

transit tenant rights and long-term planning in the east bay. san francisco is planning zoned for 80,000 additional homes. we're concerned about the impacts of focusing too much on inequality within san francisco and too little on inequality between san francisco to the less counties of the bay. and san francisco is about twice as rich as west oakland. there are very wide disparities between san francisco and the east bay. additional investments in hunter's point is not going to do much for renters in oakland if san francisco fails to meet its housing goals. we're glad that the planning department is concerneded about racial disparities and land use, but the planning department is not going to be able to do much about disparities in the east bay.

i think that's the most important thing is is to try to meet the housing target to avoid displacement in the east bay. i'm working to try to prevent new housing from being built and an additional sprawl, there's incredible demand for new housing in all those places even though they're not healthy places to live and san francisco's not meeting its housing target. thanks very much. have a good day. >> secretary: okay. commissioners. public comment is closed and this matter is now before you. >> commissioner: thank you. thank you to all the public commentors who called in. i want to call on commissioner imperial to get it started. >> commissioner imperial: thank you, president tanner.

i agree with some of the public comments that this is a pretty expansive document, but i still would like to, of course, thank this class for gathering all the effort and putting it in this documents. there definitely needs to be more updates and i'm looking for the third track. since we're talking about affordable housing here and a big part of this document is investment in affordable housing, i would like to call on director shaw and i do have just a couple of questions in terms of what is currently m.o.c.d. doing right now in terms of identifying barriers in getting to affordable housing? or are there any things robbery

formulated right now? >> commissioner, i don't think director shaw is on. >> secretary: i was going to mention. i don't see him. >> i know he had an obligation afterward. >> commissioner: they just need to be added. they can add them and then they can respond to the question. >> secretary: it's going to take a minute to add them. i don't even have their e-mail addresses. >> president: maybe if you

have other questions or a question for kimia. >> commissioner imperial: i guess if the staff with mocd aren't able to, you know, i'm hoping in the third hearing that, you know, we would like to know or at least i am, the commissioner would like to know what are the efforts of mocd as well as identifying barriers in terms of getting into affordable housing since a big portion of this housing element is talking about investments in affordable housing. what are the structures we have right now. so if they cannot make it today, you know, i would like to hear those things. i do have a lot of comments and hope that the other commissioners would be patient with me, but one of the big -- one of the comments i would start is on policy planning on

page 63 in term officer the review inclusionary rates including financial ability. i know there's been a discussion in terms of the financial feasibility in order to achieve affordability in the city, but i would like to critique that part because you know, we just go in terms of always emphasizing on the financial feasibility of the project. i don't think we'll ever even achieve affordability that we're talking about because that means we'll always have it at the mercy of developers and also in terms of disability of their project. so that's one comment that i would like. another thing is that in terms of the investment of affordable housing, we need to identify the amount of investments the city needs to commit to. first, we need to identify the

amount of investment whether it be building affordable housing or we have co-op, co-ownership, land acquisition, land banking that's identifying the strategy. i would like to know what it would take. and second, identify how to get there. what are the resources to get there? i would like to see more measurable goals in order to achieve it and, you know, and also that is what also makes us more accountable as a city too. in terms of the accountability process, for me as a commissioner, i would like to see a big infer from the community on what the process would look like. let's make sure that this process is transparent. another thing too is that a lot -- there has been a lot of discussions on the middle income or as far as i remember,

there's always these wars between the definition of what is low income or middle income, but i think we need to center on what the data that we have as to who are the most rent burdened. so it also got lost in translation when we tried to define low income or middle income. so we always need to center it on those needs. one thing too that i would like to also mention in this housing is the in lieu fees and i feel like they need to be calculated and perhaps they could be one of the identifying goals in terms of how are we going to get there to increase affordable housing.

another thing to and also leads to confusion and information and there needs to have a reform in this process whether it be advocacy in the federal level, using accurate map and using preferences and i think that's also one of the issues here too in the housing element is how do we make sure that we are actually using the correct map or portrayed the accuracy of the map of, you know, whether it be well resourced or, you know, ongoing risks or at risk of gentrification. i see in the map that you provided on major 51 that there is this map, but i think this is something being contested by other community members and also from my previous

experience in terms of using the placement preference map, it didn't really portray accurately, the displacement of going on city wide. so i believe there is some references on the federal, but there are but i think we want to make sure that the map that we're using is actually accurate or portraying in terms of at risk of displacement. another thing in terms for the planning definitely is an objective 2.cwe need to create [ indiscernible ] as far as i know, there hasn't really been a way to monitor the community benefits whether they are being materialized. under the objectives 3.bunder transportation, you know in

identifying the small to mid rise multifamily types, a lot of the time line on that is under the medium time line which means seven years or more. but what are we -- what is the short time line or what is being presented right now in the community? i think there needs to have some sort of presentation now in terms of the transportation plan for that. i think that's what where all this anxiety is coming from when one street is closed because of the transportation plan has been probably not vetted yet in the community. another thing too and this is a general question for everyone in regards to a.d.u. programs, can a.d.u. be really family friendly. you know, we just don't want to

commit to the number of units. that's just kind of like what director shaw is saying. we also want to make sure that these are habitable for a number of households. so something to think about when we're talking about a.d.u. programs. i know that the a.d.u. program because it's a rent controlled program, but at the same time, i think this is something that's going to be discussed in the sb90 information is, you know building it and, again, that's another funding issue as well that i think needs to be identified in terms of the funding that the city needs to commit to. one thing too in regards to up zoning, i feel like there needs to have findings that identify describe the correlation of the height and value causing cost, effects on rest and possible effects on displacement before

proposing for high increase. page 66, objective 4.b, what is community plan exemption? i think that correlates with the housing sustainability district, but i would like to see as to what are the criteria for community plan exemptions? page 72, in terms of identified to eliminate definition of group housing and modifying dwelling units of housing, let me ensure there's a community involvement or any change or modification of such definition. i think we have heard this in the planning commission in terms of the group housing for assisted dwelling units, but i would like to ensure that these definitions are in reality are grounded or what's happening on

the ground. page 78, policies, when allowing to participate in community benefit use program, my question here is this not just -- is it just around cultural districts or does it apply around m.c.d.s? you know, we need to have measurable steps of structure on how to ensure that and what is a developer doesn't adhere. so something to think about in these kind of measurables. policies, there are four objectives. support streamline and retro fit. also, we need to avoid and even identify rent evictions. i know there has been discussion about rent eviction and i think that also goes along with the demolition and controls. i think that's something we need to identify as well. page 85, when it comes to sf

landscaping ordinance, aside from that, i feel like we also need to incentivize integration of community garden and community design or add community garden for community benefit use. so those are kind of like a lot of my comments. i want -- there are two things that i highlight from here is the advocate to continue to reform ellis act that i think is really important that the city keeps doing this and leading on this. and the extent of rent control to multi-family housing that is at least 25 years old. i do have concerns though especially on page 66, policy 25 later a-h and also in terms of the reducing or eliminating planning commission hearings on state density bonus when not required. i believe us in the planning commission, we have contributed

in the input when it comes to design aspects to make sure it's actually habitable. one concern me is also page eight, demolishing rent control for affordable units which i think goes against our city's general plan in terms of preserving the rent control stocks. and things to think about for the staff in terms of i think we also lack knowledge that there's a lot of vacant units in this city. there's i believe about 48,000 vacant units, in terms of funding source, how can we take opportunity of this 48,000 vacant units. and lastly, one thing that i would like for the department to think about for the third draft is to have a time for the

community to review it properly so they can properly digest this. because you need to have more eyes on this and also more time. it took me two weeks to read this. so i'm assuming that a lot of community members don't have that much time either. so those are my comments and again, thank you, and i'm looking forward to the draft of the third policy. >> president: thank you, commissioner imperial. commissioner diamond. >> commissioner diamond: thank you to all of the staff and their hard work in terms of community outreach and the writing of the draft. all your hard work really shows. so i have two or three areas of

comment. if i understand this correctly, if we don't meet the goals, then we do lose local control over the projects and we lose access to affordable housing funds potentially. is that accurate? >> yes. so if we don't have our housing elements update and adapted in time we will lose access to affordable housing and if we don't meet our reeushgszna goals in different category goals, yes, sb35 could apply to that specific income category. >> commissioner diamond: okay. so from my perspective, we need to make sure that we have concrete measures in here to actually achieve the r.e.n.a.

goals so we don't face those results. i'm all in favor of, you know really ambitious goals. i'm in favor of really audacious goals and that's what we're facing if we look at tripling of what we -- it's been said in the past, you know, we are setting our targets -- we have had our targets set for us to be extremely high and it strikes me that we need to see, we're going to have really audacious goals that we have really looked hard at what is getting in the way of achieving those and on the affordable side, i believe my primary concern has to do with where the funding for all the affordable housing is going to come. i'm particularly concerned because figure 227 indicates that not only are we not increasing the amount of funds

that are available for affordable housing over the next ten years, it's actually a significant decrease in the amount of funds and the plan does identify certain measures, but they're all in the name all sort of in the name of advocacy. advocate for affordable housing bond. advocate for a change to problem 13. advocate for a regional tax. advocate for the regional percentages that are applicable to past affordable housing bonds and so my question and desire is that we get very concrete on what advocacy actually means in each of those areas, what are the steps that we're going to take to generate funds from those advocacy efforts and how realistic is it? some like the affordable housing bond may be way more

possible than changing prop 13 and i think we should be really clear in the plan about what we as a city are actually going to undertake in order to get the plans to build this affordable housing. otherwise, you know, our expectations are not aligned with what the reality is. and so i would really appreciate it in the next draft if we saw more concrete information about what it takes to actually get the funds that are necessary to build the affordable housing that is called for under the r.e.n.a. goals. we met our r.e.n.a. goals in the past. what i'm very concerneded about is the pattern we've seen in the past two years which is two things. one is market rate housing projects have been approved by this commission thousands of units, but they're not being built. they're in a holding pattern. no doubt, probably primarily

attribute to extremely high construction costs over which we have little control. and the second problem we're seeing is a significant droppoff in the number of applications for large market rate projects. that i think is a bigger concern and something we need to be diving deeper into is we can't meet housing goals for market rate projects if we don't get applications and if the projects are approved if they're not built. so what is standing in the way at the construction of approved projects and what is standing in the way the developers choosing to submit more applications. you know, one of those -- one of the answers to that is probably something around our process and the complexity of our process, the time frame, and the uncertainty. the plan does address that because it calls for streamlining.

but i think we need to be more specific about what we mean by streamlining. i mean, on one hand, i think we care deeply as a city that if we're going to have all of this new development on the west side that's much denser than the neighbors have previously been accustomed to that we need to make sure that it's shaped as best we can to fit into the neighborhood but quiry on whether that needs to be accompanied by discretionary review hearings. i am encouraged by the fact we are starting later today to start to set objective standards or how to have these buildings fit into the west side. and i would like to see how buildings fit in generally to the city where we're increasing density. i would like to see the next draft get more specific on what we mean by streamlining and how that would be implemented with the various kinds of approvals

that we're seeing. i also think it would be really important to have conversations with the developers of projects that have been approved, but not yet built. you know, what is it that needs to happen before those projects can be built. i mean, i don't want us to be passive about this. we need to really understand what is getting in the way and to see if there's anything that we have the ability to control. there may not be, but we ought to be diving deep into this so we understand that. we don't get credit under approved projects. i believe we have to have or they need to be somewhere in the process and we for sure can't get anymore housing if people aren't submitting applications and so we need to understand what's getting in the way of project applicants submitting their applications.

and the third thing, it has been mentioned. it was mentioned by commissioner imperial and some of the speakers and that is it's not enough to increase the amount of housing. we need to make sure we're providing the services that make for livable neighborhoods at the same time. and on the west side, my concern is that we need to make sure that our policies are addressing short term, median term, and long term how we are increasing transportation. in particular, i want to talk about the geary corridor and the 19th avenue corridor that for decades we have been talking about building light rail and still so far off in the future and if we increase density in the near term, we're going to have all these people there probably without parking because we are encouraging approval of projects without cars. so how are they going to get around and i believe that we need to be more explicit in the

plan about what we're doing to encourage transportation on the west side so that it comes in a time frame that's consistent with the time frame in which we expect to see the densification of housing. and as we increase density all over the city, we limit block space. we need to make sure that we're looking very carefully at everything we can do in order to preserve, enhance, even expand access to neighborhood parks. as a denser city, that likely means reduction of backyards, but it shouldn't mean that we're reducing access to parks and recreational facilities for

the families in those areas. that was it. again, i just really want to conclude by thatting you again for all of the hard work in getting us to this. >> president: thank you, commissioner diamond. i'm going to call on commissioner fung now. >> commissioner: i do think that this draft is getting us closer. i have two remaining comments. when i reviewed the details in the appendix on that, it appeared to me that some highly

visible vulnerable communities did not provide input into it and so i would ask the staff to go back through that and ensure that all highly visible vulnerable communities have been approached so that input can be provided and should it be necessary then to add their comments to the next draft the second comment i had was whether the planning team had reviewed other housing elements that have recently been completed by other municipalities. i don't know whether as an example, has the planning team been able to review los

angeles's recently completed housing elements? >> president: did staff want to provide an answer to that question? >> sure. yes. thank you so much for that question, commissioner fung. we have been in communication with l.a. and have been looking at reviewing their plan and also learning about the analysis and we will continue with that. thank you. >> commissioner: okay. i'm finished, president tanner. >> president: thank you commissioner fung. commissioner chan. >> commissioner: thank you for the extensive work on this, it really does show.

i have two comments. i i don't want to repeat the comments of the other commissioners, but one is around policy 4.8, the policy to maximize use of housing staff and vacancies and short term use and retail. i think something that would be really helpful is to be able to quantify and understand the investment of corporate investors who actually are maybe part of the housing distribution of housing and when looking at the housing element and the documents, i think there was one, you know, section that acknowledged investors that san francisco attracts its investors and that housing is a global commodity, but other than that, i couldn't find any other mention of that. so i would encourage to shy away from these conversations and really acknowledge the elephant in the room that as long as we're still operating in a global economy where land and home ownership and housing as an exchange value is always

going to be attention with aspirational goals to housing elements, as much as we want housing and housing as a youth value, so i think it's important to have this conversation, it's important to really look into those trends. i know that some of the corporate investment might be happening in other housing markets nationwide, but we don't necessarily know the current impacts here in san francisco and the bay area and i think it would be helpful to know that. my second comment is around anticipating trends. the variables around how people are playing, shifting with the pandemic and a little bit surprised to see that remote work. i do understand that there's some occupations for long commute is very much a reality but i also think that that

reality could be shifting for different demographics so just understanding that and thinking about how we build some flexibilities so we can anticipate the unanticipated and my last comment is minor in the housing element draft, page 82, figure study 3. the title says percentage of cases or ethnicity i think we can just specify that title about covid cases. those are my comments and thank you so much. >> president: thank you, commissioner chan. i just have a few comments of my own that i'll make. first, i'll start out by thanking staff. it's just really outstanding and really deep community work and i know it's been challenging as we heard and i just wish you the continued inspiration to keep working and continuing to work on behalf of our city.

i also want to thank the many who contributed to this plan who gave their feedback whether it was through a survey or a conversation or a focus group and i hope folks will continue to participate to provide further ceremony. this is part of the process. i want to pick up on something commissioner chan just said and whether we want to believe it or not, san francisco is part of california and the united states and that puts us in a position where privately owned land is the bulk of the land where housing is produced and created and provided. and most housing is in the private market. and so if we're moving forward, we want so have under moving

into that future. most housing is and certainly is proposed. i don't think it challenges that and the city is putting together. so i think this takes leaps and bounds. things that happened in the past continue to further inequity in our city. i wanted to ask a little bit about why we have our goal and our use of aspirational documents. i do want to ask if you can just help us understand if we have any concerns about compliance of this housing element with state law, are we

able to identify the sites that they want us to identify for housing and accommodate the housing, how are we doing with some of the kind of nuts and bolts that h.c.d. is going to be looking for when they review this element and see if they can deem it compliant? >> thank you, president tanner, for that question. we are working closely with h.c.d. to really figure out how some of the new requirements would apply to san francisco. so we are working on our site inventory and how it meets not only the kind of quantitiy but also for fair housing laws. that's a pretty new law, you know there's not a lot of specific sites. that's what we're working on. san francisco has a lot of capacity, but when you could

layer in factors, some of the members of the public mentioned the developbility and trends, then you kind of -- that capacity kind of goes down and we -- our initial analysis as part of the housing strategies shows that we have even factoring in some of the developbility. we have the capacity, but we still are trying to figure out the permanent housing laws and to make sure we meet state laws around inventory. >> president: do we anticipate our next hearing, we'll have more discussion about the site inventory? >> yes. we will have the set inventory released by the third draft.

>> president: great. we'll look forward to diving into another aspect of the housing element. and maybe just kind of on that line in terms of compliance with state law, what i understood is we have several maps that are using to help ground v housing elements, but there are some particular maps and one map can you just share a little bit about that map that we're required to use by state law. >> sure. its fair housing law basically uses this map that was put together as part of the affordable housing funding processes to basically to help local jurisdictions to identify areas that more affordable housing opportunities need to be directed to. and there are also maps that kind of identify segregated pockets of the state and the region and that we are supposed

to have plans and programs so a person still has smaller pockets of sergeant agree gaegs, but we are required. they're high opportunity maps that put together also by if our organization includes others belonging to the institute to kind of guide our goals and especially in affordable housing. >> president: thank you. so i think that's why we see the well resourced map being referenced pretty frequently and then we also see other maps that are helping to fill in some gaps, but we do need to make sure we're incorporating the well resourced maps into our analysis and policies. you know, can you talk a little bit about the h.s.h. and how collaboration has gone with them? i was really happy to see

ending homelessness to be something that we are saying we want to achieve and i know that's not a new phrase, but it continues to be a growing problem sadly and one that i know i think everybody in the city wants to figure out how we can help our unhoused neighbors and make sure nobody falls into homelessness. so if you can give us a little color on how h.s.h. has been involved and what do you see? i know there's a lot of ideas, are there a few colonels that have the most traction or most support? >> sure. so, yes, we are in collaboration with h.s.h. in kind of going over the policy and they are also unfortunately they have not been able to do their most recent time counts due to the pandemic, but they are conducting the next fund in 2022. and that would also inform their own strategy updating

their own strategy. so we also talked with, we have the focus group with providers, care providers for specifically lgbtq homeless populations and we also worked with a group called h.a.s.p.a. which i'm not sure what the acronym stands for but it's a collective of providers for homeless services and we got their input on these policies. you know, i think everyone's in agreement that addressing homelessness is kind of a collective, needs to be a collective and comprehensive strategy and needs to rely on supportive housing for every single homeless person. so the policies kind of try to

reflect that and understand how priorities are given within services and we've always been kind of prioritizing chronic homelessness and how there are kind of concerns around how that leads off certain other vulnerabilities and puts them on the path for chronic homelessness. so we have been in conversations with h.s.h. on that as well and that's been infiltrated into our policies and it's more of a longer term look at how those can be adjusted. >> okay. thank you so much. i'll just make a few additional comments and certainly that topic is complex and we look

forward to give more time to more data. of maybe we will through all of our efforts through the pandemic. i know a lot more families. maybe switching gears or perhaps related two of the topics that stuck out to me, all the work we can do to make sure people have homes to live in and then kind of alongside that to me is protecting our tenants and stabilizing folks and really making sure it's maybe two or three polls that we have the laws in the books that help to protect tenants and really they are not that

prevent someone from saying i'm going to evict all these tenants in order to make more money and renovate this building or turn it into something else. really focus on underutilized parcels. commercial buildings. products where a homeowner owns it and they want to turn their home into let's taking advantage of sb9. that really is our focus and so i think crafting our and then also having the third goal development standards that are away from living but to make those tenant protection laws while community organizations

to make sure we know or not. they won't be received very well if they're dispopulationing folks and like wise if we are moving to a more streamlined approval, planners can know this is a site that can be developed. so there really isn't a back and forth. this isn't really a question on whether it qualifies. so i hope we can continue to see more development of that and the only other thing i'll say is i like commissioner diamond really awe dishs and big goals. there may be too much audacity, but i'm concerned that we're overpromising to our community. i want to have all these voices here, but i think really important is going to be prioritizing what are we going to put first.

where are we going to assign our staffing resources. this is a plan for a lot of our staff would be looking at this strategy. that we have to carry out and i would love to see if there's a way looking towards adoption, what are the foundational things that we want to move forward are there any needs that are so palpable and great that we need to start there and because it is a lot and i would support if we could try to give our community partners and members of the public maybe two weeks if not more to review it because there's so much wonderful content and i don't want us to rush the next review, i can tell how you're

going to accommodate that but i hope we can get at least two reviews to make sure no one feels we have enough time. i don't see any other commissioners raising their hand. did you want to respond to some of the comments? i just saw you pop up on my screen. >> yes, well, you have provided. i wanted to thank you for going through this substantial and detailed documents. what i would like to do is summarize what we heard from you and how we're going to go about addressing your comments. so there's a big piece about the information, there's information that it was either

that we have that was not presented or appearing enough there's some initial analysis that you're asking us to do. you're also asking us to add specificity in policy and action in a wide range of areas related to streamlining, related to ending homelessness and that connects to the last point about let's be ambitious but let's make sure we have complete steps. there is also a request to make things more explicit as it relates to funding what does it mean when we say we're going to advocate for additional funding and how much it's going to take us to deliver on the numbers that are in front of us.

you're also canning us to make sure if there's any vulnerable group that we pay attention to that. we think at this point and my staff align we can commit to a two week review period before coming. if we it add more time, we will work hard to accommodate that. there's also a request to bring information from our implementation agencies. from mocd, from h.s.h. so you can review how the plan is connected to the existing programs and the future programs and we're already working on the housing implementation team. we already have a team in place ready to go as soon as the housing plan is adopted.

we think we got the specifics we've got the details. we just wanted to make sure we have a process to address your comments and deliver a third draft that carry the substance that you're asking us to deliver. >> president: thank you for that great summary. the i will invite any commissioners can comment now or they want to particularly make sure that you heard. i want to just offer, the graphics are beautiful. i particularly liked the table that was at the end that showed how things changed. and so just in terms of again, not kind of go that way, but just to say, that was really effective. as you're doing more designs, i found that effective. perhaps there's an icon you want to use, that might also

help us note. and so it's in progress versus this would be a whole new body of work that the city hasn't tackled yet and so it's going to be a heavier lift. so those are just two kind of communication. i did see commissioner imperial. >> commissioner imperial: yeah. i just want to jump on and thank you in terms are what the department's going to do and in terms of readability of the document i think while i was reading this document i was thinking it identifies which is the lead agency but i think -- i'm sorry. i don't want to be too specific, but perhaps in terms of what is the summary of what

the planning is going to do and then separate from mocd which is what the other departments are going to do. it's just going to help for me as the planning commissioner. so i summarize it as what is the planning department going to do and what president tanner was talking about in terms of is this ongoing and understanding the document. >> now with the tool, it's a lot easier and it will give you some flexibility to sort things out by the priorities. >> president: i think we're ready to move on from this item.

>> secretary: very good commissioner president tanner. the next and final item on today's agenda as item ten has been continued and eleven has been withdrawn. for case numbers 2018-016522cwp and case 2022-000447crv. informational presentation and objective design standards related to sb 9 respectively: we will hear both staff i see bridget and i will ask you or make you the presenter. >> thank you.

all right. good evening commissioners. planning department staff. i'm joined this evening with my colleagues kate connor to discuss the implementation of senate bill 9. as a reminder, sb9 was passed last year to address the state housing crisis. the bill took effect on january 1st of had had year. this bill allows for the ministerial approval and the construction of duplexes. this bill has specific eligibility criteria and only applies in single family homes zoning districts which in san francisco represents 49% of the parcels. to be eligible, the existing home may not be subject to rent control, may not be tenant occupied in the last three years or had an ellis act

eviction in the last three years. to pursue the loss, the new parcel must be at least 1,200 square feet. and the applicant must occupy one of these units for at least three years post construction. there are three paths under this bill, the construction of a duplex, a lock split, or the combination of both a lock split and duplex. projects that qualify will benefit from ministerial approval. means no ceqa review. no historic preservation review for most buildings. no neighborhood notice and no planning commission approval or discretionary review. as you will recall from our presentation on october 21st of 2021, we conducted a racial and social equity analysis of this bill. and those results have been reviewed and utilized

throughout our implementation efforts. this study is included as exhibit c in your packet. in san francisco, we have consulted to analyze the financial feasibility for property owners of adding housing units to existing single family home. the results from this study exhibit d in your packet analyzed six development prototype scenarios with rental versions of projects located in the bayview, in the richmond and pacific heights neighborhoods. the scenarios include the demolition of an existing home and new construction as well as the remodel of an existing home and in addition of one to three units. including ground floor and rear yard units. the results from this study indicate that the resid was

value of adding units fell below. construction costs in san francisco are among the world's highest and these costs make up the majority of project costs which is a significant barrier to feasibility. scenarios resulted in higher residual land values or greater feasibility than rental versions. the for sale projects still appear financially challenging. high rent and sales prices accompany high single family home purchase prices and construction costs do not vary meaningfully by location. property owners goal may not always be income motivated. the conclusion implies limited financial incentive to

undertake prototype projects under sb9. the planning department and public works will be the lead agencies for implementation with public works handing the lock splits and determining the eligibility in the program. we have created a working group with members from all city permitting departments and pg&e. through this work, we have learned that as you may imagine emergency access, egress pathways and utility easements will be a significant constraints for lock splits and rear yard developments on a typical 2500 square foot wide. we highly recommend that applicants request a project review meeting, detain feedback from all permitting departments before officially submitting. we've created director's bulletin eight. we've also created a new

supplemental application to determine eligibility and for applicants to list the code sections they wish to seek release from to construct the project. so far, we've received one for the middle under sb 9 and we've been working with numerous applicants in the initial drawing and planning stages. commissioners, i'm aware the board of supervisors is considering an ordinance to the city to rh1 parcels and eliminate single family zoning in san francisco. if the city is up zoned to rh2 as minimum zoning it will effective render sb9 mute in san francisco as sb9 only applies to single family zoning districts which are rh1 rh1d and 1f. however, sb9 is in effect now and will remain in effect unless the board of supervisors

passes this legislative zoning. as such, we would like to now discuss the action item for today and recommend option of the objective design standards. it does allow for the review against objective design standards. as many of you know, the san francisco planning department has residential design guidelines which are codified, but not necessarily objective. we've established some level of design review, we have created design standards that will apply to these standards. the standards are in the packet for 9a as exhibite and the packet for item 9b. i'd like to note that the draft resolution in your packet and the agenda language both incorrectly use the words guidelines and should be replaced with the term standards and resolution will be corrected before it is finalized. the department has received one

letter from the public since the publication of this packet with comments on the feasibility study to the objective design standards. these objective design standards are before you today as an item for adoption. we believe these standards can be updated over time as deemed necessary but we urge the commission to adopt some form of these standards today so that projects submitted after this hearing are subject to these standards. i will now hand it off to trent greenen who will walk through the objective design standards. we'll all be available for questions after the presentation if needed. >> thank you, bridget. good afternoon, commissioners. trent greenen, staff architect. pleased to be here to briefly walk you through the sb9

objective design standards. the standards in the developmental standards within the parameters, we really strive to use guiding principles throughout the city as we've been using to do design review for years and some of the highlights of these are minimizing the impacts of block open space, balancing the scale of buildings that define this space. minimizing impacts to light and privacy, maximizing landscape and permeable materials on the site. so the standards are not intended to be comprehensive, but rather they provide a handful of requirements that we feel are important to implementing sb9 to allow for ministerial approval of the projects. the guidelines are divided into two main categories. site design and architecture and we're illustrating the two main scenarios for the single

lot options and the lot we're showing here is a 2,500 feet wide by 2,500 feet deep. so looking at the first guideline in how we structured this, at the top, you'll see the standard which is sculpt building which is 25% and 30% rear yard followed by the rationale and the means to achieve it and the means are what give it the regulatory teeth and describe what measures need to be met to meet this standard. so looking at the content of this one, this is our single lot option where the three story building can extend back to the 45% rear yard line and

from that main volume, a two-story pop-out can project back to the 30% rear yard line with 5' setbacks on both sides. so within this overall envelope, there's roughly a little over 4,000 square feet which usually allows for pretty ample sized units. so this is what we arrived at for this one. next slide, please. next is to ensure unit size parody. the intent that this was to prevent a sponsor for coming in and proposing an excessively large primary unit and a very small secondary unit. so what we're suggesting is that the secondary unit be 50%

of the size birds eye view. of what that would allow to go three stories at the street. next slide. then moving on to the lot split scenario. the primary sort of organizing standards for the lot split is to require that a 25' shared court be included between the front and rear buildings. so this does a couple of things. one it provides very high quality open space with plenty of exposure for light, but it also due to that dimension, it sort of regulates the size of

the buildings in the front and the rear and how big they can be, but it does allow for the minimum unit size that's required for sb9 and then we would also allow for architectural projections into this space as per code section 136. next slide please. and then again to make sure that that's a very high quality open space and to provide some relief to that rear unit, the front building needs to set back at the upper story a minimum of 10' to respond to that lower unit in the back. slide, please. and then, again -- i'm sorry. can you go back to the previous slide, bridget.

i'm sorry, i was getting my standards mixed up. let me revisit this one. for the rear building because obviously putting a building on this part of the lot has an outsize impact to the neighbors. so we're recommending that the height of that building be minimized just two stories or 20'. again, placing a building what is commonly in the mid block open space would have significant impact. so we do want to minimize that. next slide, please. and, again, this is the one that i put out of order, but basically stepping back that front building to allow the step down to the lower one and provide exposure to the space. and then again for the rear building, in order to provide better exposure to the new duplex unit and provide relief

to the neighbors, the building needs to be set back 4' either in the rear or one side to allow for flexibility depending on the lot shape and size. next slide. and then these are a few standards that we commonly apply as part of design review. we basically standardize them and provide numerical values to them. so for matching light wells and setbacks essentially, you need to provide 75% of the width of the adjacent light well in a minimum of 3' of depth. slide. and then for roof decks, another one that we commonly provide comments for design review is that roof decks should be set back a minimum of 5' from all roof edges and including light wells.

the stair penthouse needs to be minimized in size for building code and set back a minimum of 15' from the front of the building. next slide. and then minimize parking. for the current rh1 zoning, each unit is allowed up to 1.5 spaces per unit. so in order to prioritize housing and minimize parking, we're limiting it to one parking space per unit maximum. slide and then moving on to the architectural standards, this is a view of the lot split scenario from the street. it's just a hypothetical scenario of the three-story duplex with the ground floor adu. in the context of typical two-story buildings. and then a few basic ones in

terms of materials and windows and so forth. we use sustainable dushl materials. most materials are fine as a primary clotting material. but there are vinyl and tropical woods. vinyl which is inappropriate for street facing facades and tropical woods are not appropriate and unsustainable for construction. slide. and the use appropriate windows. essentially the only building material which would not be permitted are vinyl windows when facing a street and in terms of detailing which is very important is they need to be recessed properly, a minimum of 3" for new construction, but for existing to match the existing reset. it can be down to 2".

next slide. landscape setbacks. we're requiring more increased landscaping than is typically required for front setbacks. basically anything that's not a walk way or a driveway needs to be landscaped. in addition to that for the tradesmen entry to the rear units, you need to provide minimum landscape strip between the parking garage and the pedestrian path just to clearly identify it as a pedestrian entrance. slide please. and finally, incorporate prominent entries these are comments that we commonly make and very simple here is that entries, well, primary entries, multiple units need to face the street and all entries need to be raised 3' from the sidewalk or recessed 3' from the facade.

to be a minimum of four feet in width. we feel it's important to mark it as a prominent feature on this facade as opposed to the parking. and i believe that's the end of the presentation. i'm available for questions. thank you. >> secretary: okay. if that concludes staff presentation, we should open up public comment. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter by pressing star three to be added to the queue. through the chair, you'll each have two minutes and when you hear that your line has been unmuted, that is your indication to begin speaking. >> caller: good afternoon, president tanner, and commissioners. this is jeremy shaw with shaw architects. san francisco is obviously quite different context from other cities or other states.

these objective standards seem to be quite well reasoned and reasonable based on most typical rectangular sites. my one comment is that and it may not be workable for modifying existing buildings so i would like some wiggle room there and last but not least, i would suggest we apply these standards or something similar across all our zoning districts. so i would hope that these would be precedent. thank you.

>>. >> caller: hi i've been an architect in san francisco for 30 years. very excited to see sb9 implemented in density and opportunity for both homeowners and architecture builders. i think my peer group and i are all preaddimentsly opposed to objective design standards and limitation on materials seems arbitrary given it's allowed on most other projects and be only limited to these projects just seems odd. it seems a bit back wards. this idea of carte blanche limiting things like 5% metal panelling seems kind of crazy and it seems like that's what most of our clients want these days. i would encourage more flexibility on some of those design standards. thank you. >> caller: good afternoon commissioners. i'm the chairman of the small firms committee of the san francisco a.i.a. and i would

like to support jim zack's comments as a group, a professional group. we've had time to review the design standards that have been put forward and a lot of folks have raised objections. so they've seen today and would like more time to consider those design standards and work with the planning department to try to understand their intent. i do think that, you know, we deal with the residential design standards in introducing a whole other set of standards that get laid on a particular project. it doesn't seem to be a very expeditious way about it. we try to meld those standards into one set so they're easier to implement. thank you very much. >> caller: hi. my name is christopher roach. i'm on architect and i've been practicing here in san

francisco for over 20 years. i'm the chair of the a.i. public policy and advocacy committee. we only heard about these standards about a week ago, so i do want to echo my colleague's concern about the speed at which these are being proposed and that we're being asked to implement these tonight. we i think as are very supportive of sb9 we want to see it implemented. i think we understand the urgency, but this seems a little fast. i think we generally support the mapping standards, but the design standards, the architectural standards as my colleagues have pointed out are seeming arbitrary and restrictive. we would just ask maybe this i'd be continued one time so we can have a little more than a week to respond to these and work with the planning department and come up with

something that's more actionable across the city. thank you. >> caller: i'm a member of the a.i.a. cpack and a principal architecture firm in san francisco. i support the mapping standards. so i'm only going to speak about the architecture section which to my eye and all of my colleagues that i've spoken to need to be fundamentally rethought before adoption. the architecture section seems reassembled mixing several ideas about good design and to what amounts to it a highly scriptive recipe for architecture. of for instance, why is metal illegal when it is a highly sustainable and durable. the architecture expression, why are windows starting at the floor illegal.

to limit the size of openings. if there's a right sized. the notion that a big entry should always be a primary facade entry. taken together, these descriptive requirements seems to be lifted from inexpensive developments in the peninsula where the architecture is driven by economyizing the architectural line. it feels like the planning department is trying to design all future buildings with these rules. unfortunately, the language they have chosen is incredibly cheap both intellectually and relative to the current potential building technologies. the architecture section feels like we're trying to disguise

an electric vehicle of horse drawn carriages. >> secretary: go ahead sir. okay. >> caller: hello. my name is vivian dwyer and i work with architects in san francisco and i'm also a member of the a.i.a. policy group and i also agree that this has been rushed and that we haven't had enough time to thoughtfully review this and particularly in the architecture section with the very prescriptive rules and making it feel like we live in a gated community which obviously san francisco is not and i would think that we want

to celebrate the diversity and freedom of expression here that is something that is very proudly respected in this city typically and to restrict us in this way architecturally would not be a good thing. so i think we need more time to review this and reconsider with a it is that we're trying to do here especially in wanting to support sb9. thank you so much. >> caller: hi. my name is julie jackson. i am an architect here in san francisco, also a resident. and i want to echo the comments that have been made by my colleagues here in the city. i'm looking at the architecture, looking at the design standards that are shown on a flat lot which doesn't reflect the majority or quite a bit of san francisco so i think just solely saying that we need

to raise the minimum and upgrade that's not going to work and a lot of places, it really ties our hands for designing to a specific site and i just think back to some of the most treasured residential architecture in san francisco and kind of shutter to think of standards like this that apply to architecture that was built and make san francisco what it is kind of how our city would be. i also -- i don't -- i really appreciate the standards. i think they're very practical and can be implemented that we can work with those, with our clients. and i think that's what we are. they're often about massing. they're not about the materials. so i'm not sure and i mean i really appreciate and i look forward to having objectives. but kind of having such

specific and odd standards that are called objective standards i just don't understand that. that doesn't seem to make sense to me. hopefully we can see another revision of this. >> caller: hi. it's georgia shootis. about the sb9a i'll just say the word to mean that in that report which is challenging. since this is before you, the b part of 9 today, item nine, i think i agree with all the architects. i'm not an architect obviously, but i think it should be delayed and i would just say at this point, you know, the guidelines are objective. the ones you have already. so i think this whole thing that they've been sort of viewed as this horrible thing is just wrong. i did send two comments, one on

the a part of this item and one on the b, i hope you read it and i'll just repeat what i said on the b since this is pressing. they're already in place in many homes and the great swath of rh1 and they should be preserved or redacted. i like their window requirements and i think light wells should be larger than 75% if sb9 project floor is greater higher than the adjacent home. there's no discussion on excavation and that's going to be up for the next couple of months. that's happening at the b.i.c. and i think that's something the commission's going to have to deal with. quantifiable amount of permeable ground within the rear yard open space due to the fact that ground water is mixed with the supply from hetch hetchy and we need natural rear yards to catch carbon and the roof decks on the structure on the front, if it's just one unit, they don't need a

penthouse, they can have a sliding thing to get it up to their roof deck. it's a hatch. so thanks a lot. take care. be well, be safe. bye. >> hi, my name is ronald new, designer in san francisco and i feel that these standards work, you know, for standard lots but what happens when we have small lots or unique lots or lots that are in steep grades incline. so we have high standards for those lots already. so implementing the additional standards to further reduce massing eligibility which is decreased the probability of more housing. so i would strongly urge you guys to consider those things when debating these rules.

thank you. >> secretary: okay. last call for public comment on this item. you need to press star three to be added to the queue. seeing no additional requests to speak from members of the public, public comment is now closed. and this matter is now before you, commissioners. >> president: thank you. we'll call on vice president moore. >> vice president: i'm happy to see the department jump and take this on. this is a very urgent matter. i am very grateful to a.i.a. architects jumping in and talking about an area where they have questions and where more creativity could be brought as a discussion about much reality and architectural expression. i strongly support that and hope that the department will

work with the a.i.a. to come up with a broader spectrum of interpretation. the issues i have, i raised yesterday with staff in a short meeting. i believe that in the area of massing descriptions, there are a number of diagrams missing. in our rh1, we typically have lots that are 25 by 100. 25 by 114. 25 by 130. and i think it would be very illustrative to create a planned drawing for each of those lots to show how lots division as well as open space operates relative to building placement, building length for both structures. i'd further like to see that there are no roof decks alloweded on the 20' structure because the impact on adjoining properties on all sides would

be far too massive. i believe that there needs to be clarification on unit territory. i believe in the front building looking at san francisco architecture and buildings that have cottages in the rear, the front building is a larger building. so unit parody should apply to the front building. the rear building is so small that you barely get one building in there. that you get a single family unit. and that also would help with affordability by design not making that particular structure more expensive. parking is very interesting. if i understood the department correctly, they speak about one car per unit, that requires excavation and below grade at the expense of units given the

grade in the front and the rear needs to be permeable. there should be no excavation and parking below the low grade. that should be spelleded out because from my understanding of what is implied here, the rear unit does not have parking. i wanted to add mr. greenen on what i believe is a drawing error and perhaps minor as i'm understanding it but it's on page eight. can you bring that up? >> which graphic is that? >> vice president: it's page 8. it's called s.1. early on. >> yes. >> vice president: i think -- can you bring it up. >> yes.

one moment. >> vice president: yeah. thank you. >> okay. >> vice president: there you go. the line for the 45% rear yard should that stay on the ground plain and not fly in front of the top of the second floor because it's very hard to understand what you mean there. so the line would come to the fence, disappear and appear at the other side of the fence if i read that correctly. >> yeah okay. >> vice president: it's just hard to understand. again, i'd like to use this drawing and any other discussion of mapping that these drawings would also be shown in property dimensions

relative to the extent of what these buildings mean relative to the lot size that i mentioned earlier. >> yes. >> vice president: those would be my suggestions. otherwise i'm in support of what we're trying to do here. i would just like to encourage further discussions with a.i. architects and the small business section of the a.i.a. because that is what they're doing for a living and their input would be very important. thank you. >> president: thank you. we'll go to commissioner diamond next. >> commissioner diamond: thank you. my comments are very much in line with commissioner moore's comments. i discussed most of them with staff earlier this week, but i want to repeat them here because i do believe that we should be adopting something today. staff's proposal hopefully amended by some of the comments that commissioner moore made, i'm going to make, and maybe some of the other

commissioners. the comments from the a.i.a. and the other architects seem quite important, but i think they require more time with staff and that i don't think we that staff should convene in a group as soon as possible to get their input and then we should revise as soon as that group has reached agreement with staff on some of the architectural comments. in the meantime, i do believe we need something on the books, otherwise, there's nothing against which these proposals are judged. here are my comments. i believe that instead of having a 4' setback on the rear building on either the side or the rear, it should be on both sides. the goal of these comments by the way is to recognize that while adding all of these units benefits all of us, there is a severe impact on the immediately adjacent neighbors on both sides and in the rear

and that these comments are like the staff subjected to standards, many of them are intended to anticipate the neighborhood concern and try to reduce anger and accurate are you moany between neighbors as accomplish on these rear buildings. i believe that if i'm understanding correctly, staff, that there is a 5' setback required on the second story on the rear buildings. is that correct, but it's either on the side or at the rear, it's not on both.

is that accurate. >> apparently, we're requiring a 4' setback. >> commissioner diamond: i'm talking about the second story. so i think we should be proposing a 5' setback on the second story. we have a 5' setback for the front buildings that have, you know, the rear yard addition. i guess it would be either on the side of the rear or my preference is the rear makes it fit in better from the rear neighbors perspective. i don't think we need it on the bottom story because you could have a 6' to 10' fence anyway so this is the portion that would be above the fence. third is i think we should require landscaping in the 4'

setback. and it should be trees spaced at a frequency and of a type that we -- that are taken from a planning department recommendation. you can plan it wherever you should be working with the departments in order to figure out what kind of vegetative screen is likely to thrive in these 4' setbacks. i don't think it's necessary if you're building directly adjacent to the lot line building on the adjacent property, but my gaes is the adjacent and rear neighbors would rather look at a screen than look at the wall of the building that's facing them on the side or at the rear. and i think that the owners of this building should be responsible for the issuance of the final certificate of occupancy, but required to maintain it as well too. it's not like you can just plant it, not put in

irrigation, have the trees die and that's the end of it. there needs to be an ongoing obligation to maintain it which means something might need to be recorded against the property so that future owners are aware of it. i am not comfortable using the percentage formula for unit parody. my primary concern is that we're building these additional units out of the large enough to accommodate a family and whether we like it or not, we define family housing as two units -- excuse me, as two bedrooms. so i think we ought to make sure that the rear building or the second unit is at least and i don't know if it's 800' or a 1,000' and incorporate two bedrooms, so that we have a real family unit that's being produced by sb9. i would take staff guidance as to whether or not you can do that in 800' or it needs to be

a 1,000', but that seems less arbitrary than just picking a percentage calculation. thirdly, i don't think there should be roof decks on the rear building. i believe that's too great an intrusion on privacy for the neighbors on both sides and on the rear. and, let's see, that's it for my comments. and i don't, you know, i think we need to hear from all the commissioners and then figure out what we're on agreement on in order to make a motion that incorporates as many of the changes that we all support today as possible. >> commissioner diamond just to ask you a question to clarify. you talked about a 4' setback around the rear building on all sides which i get, but then did you want an additional 1' on the second floor on all sides? that may be -- we were proposing 4' on one side and

get your 4' around the bidding an additional 1' on top. >> commissioner diamond: yeah. i defer to staff as to what the appropriate amount is, but it does strike me that having in addition to the 4', you know, on all sides that having the second story setback an additional amount from the edge of the building just might make it fit in better, but i'm not the architect. i'm just putting it out there. my goal is here to reduce acrimony with the adjacent neighbors. >> right. it's tough to construct going back a foot. >> director, i think she's talking about an additional 5'. >> commissioner diamond: yes. that is what i had in mind. >> president: and i think she's saying it could be less than that. of commissioner moore, you have a hand up. >> vice president: yes. i wanted to ask director hillis

and commissioner diamond, i want to ask staff, there is a website by which aback and sb9 requires setbacks and i'll be happy to share the link. the setbacks that are uniformly required applies to all sides. the sides, both sides 4' and the rear is 4'. and we need to basically have that understanding and agreement before we go back and forth and try to say the one side or on two sides. somebody needs to basically get the legal interpretation of what sb9 is requiring. and my understanding is that it's 4' on three sides. >> president: okay. i think director hillis wants to answer that. you're on mute, director. or at least i can't hear you. >> yeah. i'm on mute. i wanted to see if kate or others from here can answer it. that is the requirement with a.d.u.s is you're 4' back from from all sides. is that understanding it's one side or no sides for sb9, kate?

>> yes, so basically a local agency the law states that a local agency may require a setback from the side and rear lot lines. so we could require it from all sides. >> commissioner diamond: that's definitely what i would be proposing. and then i have the additional request out there which i would love feedback on from the other commissioners and staff about the second story on a rear building having an additional setback beyond that. >> president: thank you. commissioner fung. >> commissioner fung: two questions for staff before i make some comments. what about corner lots? >> yeah. for corner lots, there's no setback requirement for corner lots since they have exposure onto two streets anyway.

so you could have basically a larger building envelope. >> commissioner fung: no. but i think i remember sending some thoughts on that when we were first talking only about corner lots, what to do with that in terms of design standards. is is the department not proposing any design standards different for corner lots? >> we found that these worked for corner lots adds well with the exception of requiring that setback for the rear building with the 25' space organizing. >> our requirement was you only had to be setback from one side. so on a corner lot, you could be up against the street on the rear building and an additional lot line. you just need to set back 4'

from another. and we're going to go down this path in requiring a 4' setback on all sides, we should make an exception for corner lots so they can face the street on that side. >> commissioner fung: okay. but you know, is this development of design standards comprehensive? >> i mean, that's the problem. we're trying to get something on the books before sb9 takes effect. so we're trying to limit where we're going with this. >> commissioner fung: let's talk it out a little bit further then. what's the genesis of the architecture requirements? it's not part of sb9. i know these are items that planning staff normally muscle applicants based upon their own personal prerogatives.

why is it part of this? >> go ahead. i think just the massing standards are more important to get on the books now as sb9 is in effect and we're happy to go work with a.i.a. over the next 30 days and come back and kind of refine those architectures. >> commissioner fung: i'll give you my comments now. i'm not supportive of those standards at all. i don't think they should be part of this. >> i think the idea is that we don't have the tool of the residential design guidelines to apply to sb9 so we're trying to set a very minimum bar of -- >> commissioner fung: i understand, trent. but unfortunately, not all planning staff are great designers either and what has happened in the past is that their personal preferences wind up being imposed upon

applicants when it really does nothing to either the neighborhood or to the design of a small residential building in general. you sound like you want to say something, bridget. >> yeah. if i may, commissioner fung. >> president: can i just ask a question. i just want to clarify what you said. is it that you don't support any architectural standards. >> commissioner fung: i don't support any architectural standards unless you want to landscape things into planning which is fine. >> president: i think the only thing i would say in my understanding is that without this under sb9, there can be no feedback. if there's not an objective standard, it's whatever goes. so that can be fine. i don't really have a strong

opinion. i think that's the reason why they're here. >> commissioner fung: to the director's comment, it sounds like everyone wants to have something on the book. i can support that. i can support the massing portion of it in general. okay. >> yeah. i think just one comment we were saying of planners implementing this, if we have no design standards, then there's no review. so the department has long had a policy of not allowing vinyl windows at the front. so if we have none of that in place, then people can come forward with whatever. but if we put some form of objective standards and we're more than willing to modify, you know, remove, do whatever you all think is fit, then when a planner sees it, they would only evaluate based on yes or no, do they meet that standard. is the material acceptable. then, yes, and that would be the extent of the review.

but, yes, we are definitely willing to take whatever recommendations the commission has to modify them. >> commissioner fung: all right. then let me be a little more specific. the ones of the architecture standards that i didn't really understand or accept, one is that 3' raised on the entry. i don't accept the fact that windows have to have a minimum of 18" height. and i don't accept the limitation of materials. so if you want to rethink that and bring that back, that's okay. i would accept that and the other commissioners would accept it. and therefore you're able -- if you want i can accept your comment on vinyl windows in the front although, you know what, there's some pretty good vinyl windows these days.

but anyway, that's neither here nor there. i would accept that, you know, maybe some of that can come back, but i'm just telling you and maybe the other commissioners are acceptive of the entire package, but i'm not. okay. >> president: vice president moore. >> vice president: perhaps we should distinguish between what staff need evaluation criteria, they are not restricting architects to do what they know to do and this should not be basically a prescription, a minimal prescription of one size fits all. that would be the best way. there is interior staff guidance for what needs to be looked for, but because it is ministerial approval, i can understand that staff and this architect need some guidance, but that does not become part of sb9 objective standards.

those are two very different things. so the elaboration on surface material and permeability, trade entrance, description, attitude towards parking is fine. picking up on what commissioner diamond said. cause impairment of the adjoining person's fence, you're setting up conflict with a foundation of fence posts and the adjoining property. those are all considerations when i think need to be looked at more closely before they become objective standards. again, refine massing. consult with architects and create a checklist evaluation criteria on which staff can work on this project, but don't make them part of the objective

standards. >> president: thank you. i'll add a few of my points to the soup and we will see what policy we can make at the other end of it. i just want to start by saying i'm hearing some pretty strong support possibly for separating the architectural standards from the massing standards. maybe we can add permeability to that. i would be supportive of that if that's what the majority of the commission would want so that we can work with the architectural community on the architectural standards. but i have concerns about not having massing standards and making sure we get those in place. i'm just going to kind of scroll through the packet and my comments are going to be in that order. so on the page nine, the unit parodiy description, i want to thank mr. diamond for your thoughtful way of thinking about is presented the right way to do this. is it thinking more about

square footage. we could do maybe a combination, maybe it's one unit of at least a thousand square feet or 50% of the largest unit and i think maybe having attention to whether it is in the rear yard versus a building in the duplex, maybe that's something, maybe there's two scenarios. if you're in a scenario where you have a rear building and a front building. if you have two units within one build, this is the type of parody we want where again maybe a minimum unit size could be a way to think about it. i was looking at the next pages 11 thinking about the 25' that's needed kind of to separate front and rear buildings. staff, do we have any concerns about this either in lot split scenarios or in scenarios where the lot is maybe not a standard size and it would preclude the

construction of two 800 square foot units which is what the law requires. are we mostly confident this will mostly fit the scenarios? what are we thinking about this 25' separation? >> well the lot size needs to be a minimum of 1200 square feet so some sizes would not be ehlingable is my understanding. >> president: okay. so we feel this could accommodate most lots then. >> that's correct to qualify for the original lot must be 2,400 square feet. that gets us closer to that 100' depth of the average. but, yes, this is something that could be relaxed. >> president: i don't know if we could do that today or see what happens with the rh2 if we don't up zone to rh2 i'd love to see you come back in four or

five months if you have a lot split and then you have an existing front building and who knows if that or they special cases or common cases and then we're trying to figure out what the solution is. >> yeah. if i could add this is the be perfect lime time to jump in about the discussion. the scenario that we tested looking at a deep 120' lot, we provided for one setback. the rear or the side in which case we can just squeeze in the

requisite with a lot split. so we feel the tradeoff or the commission decides to go with greater setbacks and the trade off would come at the expense of because a project sponsor can seek relaxation if they can't do what the state requires. or lesser dimension between the two buildings front and back. so take that into consideration when you deliberate over the setbacks. >> president: yeah, i think that's a great comment because of the next slide is i tend to agree with commissioner diamond, i think it can just create lesser con stern nation but to your point if it's a balloon that you're squeezing in order to accommodate that

pressure or it's eating up this rear yard and so, to me, i think it's a bit of as to up toss up. i might say in that instance, i prefer having side step backs. i think i might prefer to have the set back and have that going into the 25' a little bit or i don't know if that's enough to make up for the difference or to the point where we seek relief. this project could be so buried in their configuration that they seek relief and that's the outcome, but we keep that kind of fixed footprint. i understood that in sb9 that local jurisdictions can require access to the front street either through an easement or they can require certain lot