>> okay. good afternoon, and welcome to the san francisco planning commission hearing for

thursday, october 13, 2022. to enable public paiks, sfgov tv is broadcasting this hearing live and we'll receive public comment for each item on the agenda. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment is available by calling 415-655-0001 and entering access code 24811612186 and taking public comment from those in city hall and open the access line. speak clearly and slowly and if you care to state your name for the record, each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes and when you have 30 seconds remaining, you'll hear a chime indicating your time is almost up. i'll announce your time is up and take the next to speak. for those calling in to submit your testimony when we reach the item you want to speak on, press star three to be added to the queue. when you hear your line has been unmuted,

that's your opportunity. speak clearly and slowly and please mute the volume on your television or computer. for those persons attending in city hall, come forward and line up on the screen side of the room and finally, i'll ask that we silence any mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. at this time, i would like to call role. >> commissioner, president [mic is off] >> continuance to november 10, 2022. item 2, case number 2020-009836drp, 133 grand view avenue. the discretionary review has been withdrawn. further

commissioners, we received a late request for continuance under your regular calendar for item 13, case number 2016-0018enx at 1500 15th street and they are requesting a continuance to october 17th. i'll pleased to announce item 15, 1950 franklin street, discretionary withdrawn. i have no other continued items so we have open up public comment. this is your opportunity to address the commission on items to be continued. if you're in the chambers, come forward. call nothing remotely, press star three to be added to the queue. come on up. >> thanks, commissioners, john

with reuben (indiscernible) on behalf of the project sponsor for 1500 15th street. we're asking for a continuance today. there's code issues raised this week that we would like to clarify and confirm with staff and also give us additional opportunity to continue working with the community and see if we can make any progress there, so thank you for your consideration. november 17th would work for us. thank you. >> good afternoon, president tanner and the san francisco planning commission, my name is steven. i'm a fill representative from the carpenter's union, local 22. i represent four thousand carpenters in california and now shower who live here in san francisco and the carpenter union is speaking in opposition of the (indiscernible) at 1500 15th street. lc partners have no labor standards for this project and lc have not used -- although i have reached out to them -- >> sir. i am i'm sorry to

interrupt. you can speak for or against the continuance. >> against. thank you. >> any other members of the public who wish to speak to the items proposed to be continued. you need to press star three or come forward. no additional request to speak, public comment is closed and the continuance calendar is now before you, commissioners. >> commissioner imperial? >> move to continue items as proposed. >> second. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners on that motion to continue items as proposed. commissioner braun? >> aye. >> commissioner ruiz? >> aye. >> commissioner diamond. >> aye. >> commissioner koppel >> aye. >> commissioner moon. >> commissioner tanner? >> aye. >> that motion passes 7-0 unanimously. yes, i guess city

attorney is seeking clarity but my understanding is we were continuing all items including item 13 for 1500 15th street. thank you, commissioners. that will place us under your consent calendars. all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar, are considered to be routine by the planning commission, and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote of the commission. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission, the public, or staff so requests, in which event the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing item 3, case number 2022-002437cua, 270 columbus avenue. item four, case 2022-001239, 17 california street. >> item no. 5, 2022-00380cua, 1869 union, continuance

authorize. >> item six, 2022-008360 at 508 green street. conditional use authorization. members of the public, this is your opportunity to request that any of these items be pulled off consent and considered today or future hearing. you need to come forward if you're in the chambers. if calling by phone, press star three. when you hear your phone has been unmuted, you may begin speaking. >> hello, my name is britney wilson and i'm a resident behind this building and i do request a further discussion on this proposal before it's approved. >> which one is that? >> oh, i'm sorry. it is the 1700 california street. >> 1700 california street. very good. we'll pull that off of consent and hear that at the end of today's agenda. yes, okay. >> perfect. >> last call for comment on any of these items proposed on

consent. >> i'm here on behalf of 1700 california street. >> 17030 -- 1700 california? >> yes. >> we pulled that off at the request of the public. we'll take that up at the end of the agenda. >> you can leave and come back. >> thank you. [laughter] >> all right. very good. then, commissioners. item 4 for 1700 california street has been pulled off the consent. so, all other items on consent are before you. >> commissioner imperial? >> move to approve items 3, 5 and 6. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners on that motion to approve all items except for number 4 under your consent calendar. commissioner braun? >> aye. >> commissioner ruiz? >> aye. >> commissioner diamond? >> aye. >> commissioner imperial?

>> aye. >> commissioner koppel? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commissioner tanner? >>y. >> that passes unanimously 7 to 0. this will place us under commission matters for item 7, consideration of adoption draft minutes for september 29, 2022. members of the public, now is your opportunity to address the commission on the minutes. you need to come forward or press star three. seeing no request to speak, public comment is closed and the minutes are now before you commissioners. >> thank you, commissioner imperial? >> move to adopt the minutes. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners on that motion to adopt the minutes, commissioner braun? >> aye. >> commissioner ruiz? >> aye. >> commissioner diamond? >> aye. >> commissioner imperial? >> aye. >> commissioner koppel? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commissioner tanner?

>> aye. >> that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0. placing us on item 8, commission comments and questions. >> thank you. i'll begin this portion with our land acknowledgement. the planning commission -- [reading land acknowledgement.] >> any commissioner was comments or comments? >> not seeing any so we're done with that. commissioner i am --

commissioner imperial. >> i'm still thinking in terms to have a joint hear with the historical preservation but in what topic, that's something i'm trying to think about as well in terms, i would like to hear about the discussion and especially since there's an upcoming, a very public demanded castro theater but i hope in the future, we can have a joint hearing with the circle preservation commission. >> a joint hearing on not necessarily on that specific topic but a broader discussion. >> more broader discussion. >> okay, great. that would be exciting, i think. comments on that -- >> in the interest, if the commissioners would like to focus on something. >> certainly, you've heard here and they've been hearing in more detail about the citywide survey so that may be a topic we want to talk to them or have it at a joint hearing, the housing

element is also, i mean, that's been before the preservation commission before so that's another topic we can discuss in a joint hearing. >> i think the survey is quite robust and if you can get an update. commissioner moore? >> i would like to suggest a joint meeting with public health commission. i heard last night a laguna honda decision has been extended by one year which is a sigh of relief for everyone but that will give us more room to hear what the health commission is thinking and how they are trying to prepare for the upcoming year. >> thank you, commissioners. i don't see any other hands raised. >> okay. if there's nothing further, commissioners, we can move on to department matters. director's announcements. >> commissioners, i wanted to make you aware and some of you are aware about a potential change to our schedule to adopt the housing element and we'll have this on calendar next week

so we can have a back and forth on it because it could be fairly significant, the change we need to make in our schedule. just a quick summary, we, the housing element is due to the state by january 31st but there's a grace period brought into the code of 120 days which we've been working under the assumption that if we have to -- we have until may 31st to submit our housing element, we will not be out of compliance during that grace period. we received, just last week a clarification from hcd who has been very much aware of our schedule throughout this entire process that may not be correct. that we may be out of compliance by january 31st if we don't have a housing element. we don't want to be out of compliance because it could jeopardize housing funding around housing and our transportation. it could lead to projects being submitted under

what's called the builder's remedy where zoning wouldn't necessarily, we wouldn't take into account our current zoning and we can talk more about this next week but i just wanted to give you a heads up. there's been media coverage about it in the examiner and the business times so we'll talk to you next week. if therefore are no questions for the director, we can move on to review of past events at the board of supervisors, there's no report from the board of supervisors and the historic preservation commission didn't meet yesterday. i don't know if the zoning administrator has a report on the board of appeals. okay. seeing none, then we can move on to general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the

commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. each member of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes. when the number of speakers exceed the 15-minute limit, general public comment may be moved to the end of the agenda. again, if you're in the chambers, please come forward. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three. when you hear your line has been unmuted, that's your indication to begin speaking. >> good afternoon, it's gorgia. yes, october 12th was the anniversary. commission approving the residential slap policy and i sent an e-mail about it with comments yesterday. i want to correct the typographical error that i made as the 2017 vote to prove it was five to one, not six to one. some of the extreme alterations that enjoy (indiscernible) in the past eight years created monster homes by absorbing the flat, reduced in size and relegate to a location behind

the garage and facilitated by a loophole in section 317, even beyond the fact that the demo cap is not stretched enough because the caps had not been adjusted as the commission has legislative authority to do. the only project i'm aware of that needed mandatory (indiscernible) was the project (indiscernible) where the horizontal flat was remodeled into two vertical or town house style units. both were not reduced in size but the issue for the staff was exposure, not location or relocation. and this was approved on consent. it seems that the intent of the policy is preserve housing from quote disappearing by being absorbed in the larger unit which means the loss of a flat which is likely to occur when a flat is relocated within the structure. that's why i sent the comments with the examples of those two pairs of flats. it is hard to see the difference in the flats proved in the 2010 years to the

flat policy compared with the flats as proposed and approved in 2022 at a public dr hearing. exposure and location of the flat within the structure are as important as size in preserving this housing and it codifies this policy. thanks a lot. take care, bye. >> (indiscernible) for san francisco neighborhoods. speaking on my own behalf. following up on my previous comments regarding the safety and resilience element. although fema is best known for its effort after natural disasters, fema also provides grants to communities to proactively prevent or mitigate damage from potential natural disasters. keeping in mind that the most of the damage from the 1906

earthquake was not from the earthquake itself but from post earthquake catastrophic fires which were caused by ruptured gas lines and ruptured water mains. it's my understanding that the city is not aggressively pursuing these proactive fema grants which could potentially serve as matching grants for the extension of the city's dedicated firefighter water system. the city's dedicated firefighter water system was constructed in response to the widespread destruction of the 1906 earthquake. it has a piping system that's independent of the city's drinking water system. it has the higher pressure and higher volume than the city's drinking water system. most importantly, it uses bay water rather than drinking water to fight post earthquake catastrophic fires. this leaves the drinking water for its primary purposes. i would urge

the commission to request a presentation from the office of planning -- council and plan asking resilience -- and resilience and the proactive fema grants available, which grants have been applied for and which grants have not been applied for and why. thank you. >> okay. last call for general public com enter, and again if you're in the chambers, come forward and if you're calling remotely, press star three. no request to speak, general public comment is close and we can move on to your regular calendar, commissioners. number 11, 2020-002065 for the sunset forward strategies and this is a request for your endorsement. >> commissioners, before we start i want to introduce (indiscernible) mesa, this is her first time before the commission although she has been with the department now for three years as i senior

community development specialist. she brings a strong community perspective to our work and as you'll hear specifically to the work, we're doing with the sunset community. she was born in the philippines and lived on military bases in japan and across the united states before coming to the department. carla worked on education programs and engagement strategies for underserved communities to participate in public participations and she has a ba in psychology and masters in environmental psychology and you'll hear more about how she brings her passion for working with san francisco communities to our work in the department and to ensuring that community voices are centered in the decisions that impact them. so, welcome, carla. >> welcome, carla. glad to have you here. >> thank you. thank you, director hillis. good afternoon, commissioners. carla demea staff and i'm joined by executive

director of juan may schools and a member of the planning department equity council. ben will be presented today on behalf of the district four youth and families network which is a coalition of nonprofit organizations that serve families, youth and seniors in the sunset. and we will be joined today a little later by district four supervisor, gordan mar. the supervisor has been instrumental in providing us with resources and a platform to engage the sunset community. may i have the screen, please. thank you. so for today's presentation, ben will introduce you to the work of the district four youth and families network and provide you with a background on the sunset community. and i'll present an overview of the sunset forward process, i'll share a high level summaries of the needs assessment findings and the sunset forward strategies. and then finally, supervisor mar will share his perspective on sunset forward and we'll share his office's priorities that

helped to implement the strategies. to kickoff the presentation, i want to uplift and recognize the planning commission's resolution that was passed in june 2020, centering plans on racial and social equity. the resolution calls on our department to do many things to address inequities in our planning practices but specifically it ask us to prioritize meeting the needs of black, america-indian and communities of color through our policies, through our programs, through our community engagement and community planning. it also ask us to strengthen and fund partnerships equity communities to center their voices, to identify priorities and increase community capacity building. and i also want to bring up the point that was made in the september 29th commission hearing, commissioner lee, you says it was helpful for the

community to understand race and equity so the commission can have a better understanding of perceived and community needs and used that to guide their decisions on individual projects. sunset forward is an example of all of that. it is an example of how we can center racial and social equity in community planning. it's a model of how the department can serve more as a resource for communities to articulate their needs and priorities as opposed to us being the ones to set the agenda. so, now i'd like to pass it over to ben juan to expand on the community's perspective and share with you on how this community planning process came about. >> thank you, carla. thank you, director hillis and good to see you, commissioner tanner. i'm a

san francisco native and grew up born and raise and product of san francisco unified school district and i lived in the sunset district for my development, basically early years of middle school/high school and through college. i actually was the classic story of family, working class family who were able to move to sunset district when it was affordable. it's tougher now but had been working with the sunset community for a number of years and i'm the director of an organization that celebrating 50 years of service, actually in the sunset district doing bilingual chinese and english services to young children and families. the work of the district four family, youth and family was created in partnership with other community based organizations in the sunset. when the supervisors election was available in 2018, that's what we considered an open seat so a number of organizations came together to actually, to (indiscernible) forum. first, i think --

>> i'm sorry to interrupt but sfgov, can we go to the computer, please. go ahead. >> the youth network was created after we provided a candidate forum and actually having partners we were able to work with to provide an effective candidate forum at the time. this was back in 2018 and so, part of our effort really is to ensure that the voices of, voices that don't get heard actually get heard and we'll share about the statistics in the next slide but collectively, 17 organizations serves 32030 children and families mostly in the westside of san francisco. why range -- the amount of services including childcare, education, youth, juvenile justice work, after school providers, we also work with low-income moderate-income families and rental assistance and this is probably unknown also which is high percentage of

families who rent as opposed to owning on the westside. next slide. so here's just a little quit statistics and things we're talking beginning on the westside, 53% of the families in the sunset are asian. 31% white. 8% latinx. 6 percent or more races and two percent are foreign born and 14 of the english limited households in sunset. 60% are homeowners and we don't talk about the renters but almost 40% of the people who live in the sunset are renters and families who live in the sunset -- it's the second highest population of children in san francisco. the vision we have for sunset is ensure the voices are heard and those people don't have an opportunity to come to meetings like this. we want to lift those voices. we were fortunate enough to partner

with the planning department and supervisor mar's office to create this needs assessment. we actually had reached out to supervisor mar's office wanting, the network wants to create a needs assessment, in partnership with his office, we were able to get the at-bark money and get the planning department to do this work. we want to make sure the voices that don't get heard are lift and so again these are mixed income families, seniors, transitional age youth and renters and work with carla and the planning department team, we created avenues to ensure those voices were heard through this needs assessment. carla will go through the details of that in terms of how we did the process and some of the implementation pieces that we're looking forward to working on, but wanted to give you a quick background of the sunset and

things that people don't often times talk about. thanks! >> thank you, ben. so now i would like to walk you through an overview of the project. first i'd like to share the mission ever sunset forward which is to stabilize low and moderate-income families and seniors in the sunset and enhancing community connection and quality-of-life for all by addressing unmet needs in housing, transportation and neighborhood services and businesses. this work was driven by the belief that centering the needs of community members with the most needs will lead to a stronger, healthier community overall. through this effort, we identified community needs and priorities and developed strategies that can help achieve the sunset communities division for a heathy, thriving and -- inclusive neighborhood. our goal is to establish relationships with the sunset community and help increase participation and planning, particularly for groups that are typically underrepresented, such as low-income families, youth and

seniors. this was a collective effort, planning worked closely with the supervisor's office and the district for youth and families network led by the steering committee organization shown here. and we worked with and in parallel with the san francisco san francisco authority while they addressed transportation issues through the deformality study. there were two phases of sunset forward. and also an on going community capacity building effort and the first physician was the community needs assessment that later informed a set of strategies that aimed to address the needs identified and then we further refine the strategies with community in phase ii. we are continuing to work with the district four youth and families network to build the voice of the sunset community, particularly elevating the concerns and needs of low and middle income families, seniors, renters,

non-english speaking immigrant households, small business owners and service providers in the neighborhood. we launched the project in april 2020 despite the uncertainty of covid-19. and then the sunset forward strategies were released in may, 2022 at a virtual community town hall and as we were establishing the strategies, we were coordinating with implementation efforts that were already underway. for example, we worked with the local nonprofit asian inc to design and implement a pilot program that had provided low-income -- interested in building adus in district. several nonprofits lead that in the sunset. since we launched this project in spring at the beginning of a very scary pandemic, we had to be very

flexible with outreach and with our schedule. but we were still able to engage over 2500 community members and (indiscernible) families network made this process accessible and more inclusive to community members that often have the highest barrier to participation and typically do not have their voices heard in public processes. and supervisor mar's office helped us to engage a broader representation of the sunset community, engaging with community members of varying backgrounds, income levels and relationship to the sunset. we provided as many options as possible for community to participate including conducting surveys and focus groups in english and -- chinese and making options available online. we conducted focus group was low and middle income families, youth and young adults, seniors, renters, small business owners and service providers and we partnered with nonprofit organizations like self help for the elderly to engage seniors on

their specific housing needs and neighborhood service needs. and with that, i want to thank the sunset community members, community based organizations, neighborhood associations and sunset small businesses for their participation in this effort. so now i would like to share an overview of the community needs assessment and the resulting strategies. the details are outlined in reports in your commission packet so this will be very high level. but we focused on these three key areas. housing, small businesses and neighborhood commercial corridors and neighborhood services. in terms of housing, sunset community members shared that the sunset has become increasingly unaffordable for low and middle income households. there are limited options and the type of housing that exist in the sunset, which makes it difficult for people to have their housing needs met over time. for example, as families expand and as seniors age and need to

downsize and as young people want to start out on their own. we also heard a growing feeling of housing insecurity and instability, particularly faced by renters and seniors with fixed incomes and across the board, homeownership feels increasingly out of reach for everyone. so the housing strategies focus on increasing affordability by building more one hundred percent affordable housing in the sunset and building different sizes with a focus on middle income houses and seniors and family and providing stability by having tenant support services to sunset residents. sunset small business owner shared the need for stronger coordination and more predictable and timely permitting processes that would allow for change of uses and new businesses to easily open and

operate. and this was especially crucial during the height of the pandemic when we were having these conversations with small business owners and the community expressed a desire for more diverse and affordable business offerings and clean vibrant and safe commercial corridors. to address these needs, the small business and commercial corridor strategies focused on improving zone and permitting to allow for a variety of businesses to open and operate. strengthening coordination and bringing more community building activities to the commercial corridors. and also enhancing the public realm by improving cleanliness and incorporating more greenery in local art on the commercial corridors. for a neighborhood services, people would like to see more opportunities for community and cultural connection. improved access to safe and clean parks and open spaces particularly for seniors and people with disabilities. and more programs serving low-income families, youth,

seniors and other vulnerable groups in the sunset. including programs with, for affordable health and wellness, after school and daycare and tenant support services and employment opportunity for youth. we talked with the sunset community about their needs and how to address them. we need to make sure this isn't just a plan with no action, so we're already implementing some of the strategies. planning will continue to coordinate with the youth and families network to monitor implementation and provide regular progress updates to the sunset community. we're coordinating with state agencies and nonprofits to plug into the sunset chinese cultural district, the westside affordable housing capacity building effort, and small business and commercial corridor improvement opportunities with oewd. supervisor mar has provided resources to the planning department to create a master plan to address the specific housing needs of

seniors and people with disabilities. and for the last two years, we have been working with the lousing element team to identify opportunities for the housing element to address the sunset communities priorities, particularly, around building more affordable housing, carrying new housing on transit and commercial corridors and building middle housing. there's more advanced conversations around housing element and its implementation with the sunset community and is an example of how the city's housing plan can be implemented at the local level, guided by community needs and priorities. so, today, we are asking the commission to endorse sunset forward to recognize and support the process as the community initiated and community led effort. sunset forward is also an example of how city, community and nonprofits can collaborate on building healthy,

thriving and inclusive neighborhood and we ask for your endorsement to consider the community's needs and strategies as you may decisions on projects in district four. this effort and implementation of the strategies have been made possible because of supervisor mar's leadership and effort -- and his efforts to fund the planning process and support with engaging the sunset community. so, i now like to introduce supervisor mar to close our presentation with his perspective and his office's priority will help move sunset forward and this concludes the slide presentation, so i'll exit out of the presentation screen.

>> it is timely and i think it's also a very good important example of how we should be approaching planning to meet the needs of our city and our neighborhoods now and into the future with robust community engagement and planning comprehensively so it's not about just housing but planning for transportation and community services and supporting small businesses and economic vitality in our city, so i'm really proud of this process and the final project that came out of it and

all the recommendations and just wanted to share a few other point, key points before turn going over to you for discussion and questions. but i think one thing we did hear consistently throughout the last few years through the sunset core process from our community leaders and members in the sunset is the need to build more capacity in the sunset and on the westside, i think overall for planning and community engagement and you know, in my -- in the sunset and the westside, we lack a lot of the developed community infrastructure that exist in the side neighborhoods where there's more, there's been more developed work around these issues. so, i through the sunset process -- i think over the sunset process, we started to build community capacity in my district that was connected to this process. i'm grateful that

-- as carla highlighted that we -- the chinese community and the workers in my office created sunset chinese district and it was connected to the sunset forward process and then we also have been working with director shaw from ocd to build capacity for affordable housing development and really, in community development on the westside, so really pleased that just this year, there's a formation of a westside, more of a formalized formation of a westside affordable housing network that is funded through some at-back fund that my office and supervisor chan's office allocated to ocd, so that's going to be, this is important to infrastructure and on the westside for housing development. the district four

and families network who was a mart commercial in the sunset -- who was a partner in the sunset, they are important and we will work with them on the implementation and if i could just have -- >> yeah, you can have more time. please continue, supervisor. >> yeah. yeah, so just i wanted to highlight that we're moving forward on the key recommendations and policies in the sunset forward final report on affordable housing. you know, i'm proud of the fact that we have -- we've secured historic investments in the sunset district and we broke ground on -- it's the city's first affordable housing for sfusd educator and then 2550 irving is

important for the first affordable housing for low-income families including 22 units of permanent -- 2550 irving is historic for the westside and sunset. we've been working on expanding single-family homes with adus and now under sb9, duplexes and fourplexes, so we've created the housing development incentive program for homeowners that provide resources and support for homeowners to create adus, duplexs and fourplexes as allowed under local and state law and thanks to the planning department for working on that new program. so, yeah. actually maybe i'll leave it at that and but thanks again to all of you and thanks to the planning department for really leading this important work with the community in the sunset. thanks. >> thank you for coming here, supervisor. it's exciting to

hear not just planning, that's what we see and hopefully what we'll be endorsing today but the actions and the relationship building and the network and the infrastructure as you have indicated that's behind it and so many things in motion, so just thank you for your support to the community. it's really exciting. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. >> if that concludes staff's presentation. members of the public can address the commission. if in the chambers, come forward. call nothing remotely -- calling in remotely, press star three. >> hi name is lilly wong and i'm the director of the sunset cultural district and we're based at wama school. i serve as the director of community engagement. so i'm here to urge all of you to support the strategies that you just heard and the chinese cultural district, we're really proud to

represent the sunset community and also work with the strategies and amplify move it forward, grow it as our own cultural district grows. a little context, i'm a san francisco native. i grew up here after my family immigrated here and i was most recently doing community engagement at ucfa for their live project. i know what quality community engagement looks like and what the sf planning department with carla has done in the sunset really represents what kind of community engagement we want to see all over the city but especially for the sunset as we're grow and changing along with the times. and you know, again, just really encouraging you to endorse this project because it will show us that sf planning is kind of moving in a different direction where you're

working with our communities, that development is happening hand-and-hand with the people who live here and it provides our community hope that you know, we can actually stay, thrive and grow with the city. thank you. >> hi, commissioners, my name is cody lee and i'm the director of extended learning at wama school. i was working with the sunset forward project for the last two years or so. and i just wanted to call attention again to the unique process that we went through. in fact, we didn't really realize how unique it was for planning to be partnering with community in the way that they were for this process. in fact from the beginning, we weren't even speaking the same language, the planning department and the community org's, the district four youth and family network represents had different ways of operating, different ways of doing business

and through this process, i think the real win is not just the sunset forward final recommendations but the process itself and planning department deeply engaging in community and truly working with the community partners that are already very familiar with what the community wants and is deeply engaged with community members from all backgrounds especially low and moderate-income families and youth and seniors as this project looked to raise a voice of those folks, so of course, i hope that you'll endorse this project and also that the planning department will continue to engage in community in this way because i think that the communities in san francisco will greatly benefit from the engagement with community organizations that are already doing this work on day-to-day basis, thank you. >> >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is lamar,

president of asian inc. we're the operator of a minority business center for the u.c. department of minority business agency. so there are many strategies in this product that asian inc. is interested in. i wanted to thank director hillis for the confidence he instilled in his staff, carla de mesa was a constant before and during and after the pandemic that we're grappling with so she's been a part of the this process so thank you carla for being a community member on the ground on the weekends and evenings and we shepard. i'm a westside resident and born and raised in san francisco and for me and for my wife and two children, i look at the product of sunset forward and say would i want to live in a community that this product illustrates? would i want my children to be able to

participate in a process that yields a community like this? the answer is yes. asian inc. is a part of creating housing opportunity and i'll speak briefly about the adu pilot program we participated in. homeowners on the westside want to be a part of the housing solution. if they are provided with resources and assistance, they can be a part of a housing solutions. businesses want to be a part of a solution to create a safer westside so people feel confident in participating in the commerce and the economy. so, i hope that the planning commissioners do recognize the value of this community effort, asian inc. is proud to be associated with it and we look forward to helping our city carry out that work, thank you. >> hello, commissioners. my name is jessica with the district four and youth network. i'm the current coordinator and i started with the network about a year ago and jumped right into

the process. a little about me, i come from a family and a community that this type of processes are very foreign to them, so i can understand how difficult it can be to do community engagement from our side. when i started it was a great introduction to the die gnat micks of d5, and the relationships that community members had with city entities and and the city entities had with cbo's. sunset forward was a bridge building process and the d4 network took the extra step to include the folks in the community that had families, that had to make dinner and be at work, i think it's important to note too that i'm here making a public comment on the clock. so i'm able to use this role as a resource to speak with the community and for the community with all the work we've done. we were able to provide ways to get the community involved, using translation or just simply doing a lot of extra efforts also with the pandemic. i think that

sunset forward was a beautiful and successful effort with rebuilding trust, trusting relationships not only between the cbo's and city entities and the community members but with residents who have been overlooked too often. they are able to recognize their power and use their voice as community members to engage with the civic responsibilities. so, i urge you to also endorse the sunset forward process as the way to really rebuild those relationships with city and cbo's and community members. and also for us to be able to go back to continue this conversations we started with our community and tell them, this was an effort that was worth it. your voices matter and we'll continue to fight together. so thank you. >> okay. seeing no additional members of the public in the chambers, we'll go to our remote callers. again, when you hear your line has been unmuted, that's your indication to begin

speaking. >> good afternoon, commissioners, joseph with the westside community coalition. it has been several or i have several years of experience providing counseling, organize and capacity building for affordable housing in sunset. fema work on the ground in the community especially and i work with meta to build affordable housing through out the westside, i got involved with the sunset forward process. this entailed regular meetings with planning staff and participating in community input workshops, engaging the westside coalition in the community survey. i want to appreciate the hard work of carla and other planning staff for staying focused on the needs of low and method rah income sunset residents throughout the entire process and the efforts of (indiscernible) school and the other organizations in the district four youth and family network along with supervisor mar's office to ensure that people who typically are excluded from processes like these were not just heard but their needs prioritied throughout the process. i want

to appreciate the set of strategies that resulted from this process which are substantially responsive to those who are most in need. oovps implementation of the strategies and sunset forward promises to increase housing affordability and provide support for small business owners and add vibrance and activity to the commercial corridor and make sure neighborhood certificate -- i hope the commission will endorse sunset forward which is a model for planning approach to community engagement by working to remove barriers and public participation anden gang middle and low-income families, senior, non-english speakers and other (indiscernible) underrepresented in public processes and prioritize their needs, thank you. >> hi. my name is met and i'm

the director of -- i'm the director of community resources, the director of the sunset neighborhood beacon center and active member of the district four youth and families network. i'm also a district four resident renter, father, and former k through 12, sfusd student. i also graduated from sfusd, so i'm very familiar with and close to district four, both as a place i work, live, and play. i want to thank the commission for taking this up and i want to thank carla de mesa for leading the planning commission side of this in this work. i like many, i was surprised to find out that we were going to be doing this work collectively and i have been surprised by the commitment of the staff to engage the community and go out of their way to reach out to folks even if we're not getting initial

responses. i thank the committee for considering this and i think this is a great opportunity for the city to show communities at large that we do care what they say, we do engage them and then we're willing to implement what communities say they need by following through with the sunset forward plan. thank you for considering this. thank you for allowing this to lead to the sunset chinese cultural district and raising the voices of those in the community and to make this community a more inclusive, healthy and thriving neighborhood with greater access to affordable housing for businesses and for services that are central to families and community. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is jessica ho. i'm the government (indiscernible) for northeast medical services and i'm a resident. (indiscernible) has participated in this process as

well and thank you for wama and carla being inclusive and it has been a great experience providing input related to health, issues and strategies for the sunset district. and also as a resident, i just want to say it has been great that this work has been going on in the last few years, even throughout the pandemic to get feedback from people about how we can really try and move forward and really build out more services and accommodations for low and moderate-income families and seniors in the sunset, so on behalf of met and myself, i request the commissioners approve, endorse the sunset forward tracking, thank you. >> hello, my name is don. and i'm the director of sunset youth services as well as a resident of district four. i'm also a

member of the d-force steering committee and the westside affordable housing coalition. i've been working in the sunset and live nothing the sunset for over 30 years. i work primarily with -- in risk young people and families. and so, i will say along with everybody else but this huge shout-out to carla for what a great job she's done and for, in the very beginning, i think being able to hear some saltiness from us about expectations and if the site was going to listen to what the community put forward and carla stayed engaged and true to her word in wanting to show that the city is going to listen and that we can shepherd in a new era of the city and the community,

folks working together. i worked on this in my -- one of my biggest areas to champion is always young people and marginalized young people and transition age adults and i did focus group was them and the salty skepticism i had was echoed by them so i'm on the line to say this stuff is going to go somewhere and we're going to implement things and the time they took to participate and their voice is going to have some pay off in what happens in the community and how this community is going to continue to and even more so be inclusive and there's going to be opportunities for people especially young people to say in the city that they grew up in and that they love, they are being kicked out of in droves right now. so, i hope that this

process can set a tone for how we move forward in city, community partnerships and how voices of community can be centered in conversations about things that actually pertain to where people live and go to school and work and raise their kids. thank you so much. >> hi, my name is don and a member of the -- the westside coalition. i support affording housing. [caller is speaking low] so this contest that we

welcome the sunset forward and they are taking real steps to consider the needs of the community. and in particularly, (indiscernible) people of color. the survey and community engagement demonstrated and honors (indiscernible) who identify our needs and give voice to the residents of sunset. [hard to hear caller] supervisor mar and carla and the planning department staff. as an individual and a member of scc, i strongly urge the commission to support the sunset forward recommendation. thank you. >> >> good afternoon. my name is amy chong and i'm the ceo of shelter for the elderly. i'm here as a sunset resident for many, many years. i live in

sunset area and i'm here also to support the initiative stated in the sunset forward report. thank you, caller and members of the plan -- thank you, carla and members of the planning staff in including our community in this very important planning process. many of our seniors in the sunset attend a lot of our activities at 14th and (indiscernible) and many of them fill out the surveys, you know, for expressing their needs for affordable housing especially support for low-income seniors in district four who needed a lot of affordable housing in the area. there's just not enough, so thank you to the staff report that include access to senior housing. also access to neighborhood services like activities, meals, classes, exercise, you know, all these really important for the well-being of our seniors, so thank you supervisor mar and thank you planning commissioners

for moving the sunset forward initiatives, show that our voices could be heard, thank you very much. >> okay. last call for public comment on this matter. you need to press star three to be added to the queue. or come forward if you're in the chambers. go ahead, caller, when you hear your line has been unmuted, that's your -- that's your indication to begin speaking. >> [indistinct speaking] >> good afternoon, this is jeff, i'm a sunset resident since 1984. and i've been involved in the sunset forward project since its inception. actually, prior to its inception, working with supervisor mar shortly after his

election in 2018. one of the motivations i think for initiating this project was sb50 which caused a lot of concern with a lot of people due to the elimination of input from the community. we had strong desire to have input and a voice in the future of how the sunset was developed especially with the intentioned focus on increasing housing supply and the intent focused on the westside. there's overwhelming interest in building more affordable housing on the westside and we are hoping that the findings of sunset forward will be taken into consideration with the continued evolution of the housing element. and be guided by the community needs and priorities that have been indicated as being desired to i want to thank supervisor mar so much for initiate this process

and carla for the great work she's done with the many, many, sessions over the last couple of years getting us to this point so i encourage support for the initiative. thank you. >> aileen, long-term sunset park resident. this document seems to mirror other documents produced by the planning department. a key statement is on page four, sunset strategy as line with the housing element. on page eight, the sunset has been a neighborhood of change. the document never elaborates on the statement which could be seen as inconsistent with the high percentage of long time residents. on page 13, there's no one size fits all strategy. yes. please tell this to sacramento. on page 13, the design and scale are now of new housing should fit within the neighborhood context. yes. on

page 14, i didn't find funding sources referring to local and regional bond measures. a recent vla study was critical as mocha procedures for handling the 2019 obligation general fund bonds. on page 15, it built 100% housing on large properties and the sunset doesn't have large pdr site. on page 15, opportunities for market rate projects to satisfy the inclusionary requirements by dead lating land for one hurt percent affordable house and this means the public land will be used for some primarily market rate projects? on page 17, (indiscernible) and small sites program. yes. on page 18 and again on 19, create a housing development incentive program to help low and moderate-income homeowners build small multifamily units. during

the (indiscernible) land use and transportation committee meeting on the sb9 ordinance, this has been identified for the most part being infeasible. on page 19, replacing a lot based unit, maximized size building controls with (indiscernible) residential and mixed-use zone asking changing the controls, discretionary review, conditional use authorizations and other processes to build comfort really. the terms, the zoning and streamlining repeated through the document. according to the august 25th advanced calendar, this was an informational hearing scheduled for september 15th and was bottled with the cultural districts. now it has been severed from it and rescheduled. why is this? thank you.

>> okay. final last call for public comment and seeing no request to speak, public comment is closed and this matter is before you. >> thank you staff and all those who called in. i'm calling on commissioner koppel? >> i would take the lead as our district four representative up here. i want to first thank supervisor mar for his everything he's done over the past two and a half years shepherding the district through its most challenging times. we lost a lot of businesses, gain some new ones -- gained some new ones and businesses did improvements and come back to good business on our merchant corridors which i'm eager to see. i'm thrilled to see the interaction between the planning and the supervisors office and community. i think that's essential for unlocking true potential of what this district is capable of. i think transit

is going to become a huge part of a lot of what happens. we have the potential to be a transit oriented accessible and equitable district with the correct development and we've been up here for the past years talking about the potential for creating more density, more units with, resulting in more affordability which is going to be very important because not only do you have a lot of homeowners, you have a lot of renters in this district. there's a lot of landscape horizontally and the district is quite large but that leaves for potential for room to make things more robust especially on the transit corridor, the el teraville and don't forget (indiscernible) is a wide street also, so it can accommodate a little more action than? of the other smaller streets but proud to be a d-4 resident. thrilled

to see the teamwork here today that's going to propel us into something really nice. >> thank you, commissioner koppel. commissioner ruiz? >> thank you. i also just want to follow commissioner koppel's comments and just thank the entire equity division especially carla, supervisor mar and all of the community partners for this work. i know doing that level of community engagement is not easy but it's super rewarding and i'm just very impressed with all of your commitment to create a plan that fullien comas the needs of the sun -- that fully encompass the needs of the sunset. before i get into questions, i fully endorse the plan and as one of the comments said, i believe this is an -- this is an example as a department we can do robust community engagement that ememboies a bottoms up approach

and across the city and prioritizing those who are low-income and vulnerable to displacement. i believe that this is also a way that we can rebuild trust with communities. i think one of the commenters said they were a bit skeptical at first and the follow through from the department really helped and so, i hope that this level of commitment really, you know, transcends sunset and we see that happening in other communities that we should really be focusing on as well and i think the product of this will really serve as a blueprint for us as a commission to understand what the values are of the sunset, what the needs are of the sunset so when we see items before us, whether it's a small business or a housing project, that we really tie it to sunset forward. and we truly approve things that are going to serve the needs of the sunset,

so i'll start with my first question and i'm sorry if i missed this in the presentation. i just wonder, what prompted the need for this strategy? >> carla, de-mesa, planning department staff. i want to invite ben wong to explain the district four youth and family's network really saw this as an opportunity to really understand the needs in the sunset. knowing qualitatively there are needs that exist, that it's not just very well educated wealthy homeowners in the sunset so they actually really wanted to see a needs assessment, to have that data and to have the paper that really showed the stories that they knew were happening on the ground. ben, do you want to expand on that? >> yeah, thanks for the question, actually. so i would say there's a perception in the sunset that everyone is a

homeowner and certainly people tend to come to these kind of meetings is the homeowners so recognizing 40% of the people living here are tenants and the number of community organizations based out there as supervisor mar is talking about, it serves the needs in the neighborhood. when we got together there were five partners during committee, quite frankly, it was a little (indiscernible) in terms of doing the forum and saying we work together really well. we should do something more for the neighborhood and city. that's one of our outreaches to get funding to do a needs assessment. we want to focus on the neighborhood services and what are the needs of the neighborhoods like childcare and you know, after school program, those kinds of things. partnering with supervisor mar's office, we added the housing piece and the transportation piece, so working with his office really created a robust way to approach what the needs of the neighborhood. so i think it's the things you're hearing,

the partnering of the community side and the planning department and the supervisor's office became this magical way of working together. how do we think about this because we have different ways of approaching the work. does that help >> yes, thank you so much. i think it's great and obviously the public commenting represents the robust communicate engagement you have participated in. my next question is, is this going to be revised every ten years? i know needs and strategies might change depending on changes happening in the neighborhood. >> yeah. carla de mesa, planning staff. this is a good question. we were focused on really tracking the implementation of it. you know, i think this has really sparked a conversation that we can continue to have to see, you know, this strategy does not make sense to continue to pursue and try and implement

so i think there's opportunity to revise and kind of adapt based on the needs. i think when we did this process, it was in the pandemic where the needs were pronounced and it was a good opportunity because we got to see housing and people being overcrowded and people needing access to housing and the commercial corridor is being vacant and the needs were coming out through that process so it's interesting to see if we address these really extreme needs, like how, what might change later on but i think that's part of the intention of tracking this. i've done a lot of community work where there isn't a conversation after the fact. we don't continue to monitor the progress and we don't up gate the community so by pursuing that, we can have these opportunity to revise and update. >> great, thank you so much. that's all my questions for

right now, thank you so much. i just want -- i would hope that the planning department would consider how great of this model of community engage is and we can apply it to other neighborhoods. i'm thinking top of mind, the caltrain station and the comments that the commission made in ensuring that we're stabilizing our homeowners and renters, our small businesses and how can we potentially use this example of robust community engagement and apply it to that neighborhood and really get ahead of the curve so just something for the equity division and the department to consider. >> i think this is something -- you know, when we formed the equity division, we were doing this work already. it served as a model for how we organize the equity division and the types of work we want to do in the equity division, so that's already happening. >> great. >> in the bay view, cultural

districts and fillmore, this is work we want to continue in other neighborhoods throughout the city. >> great, thank you. >> my last comment will be around the obvious need for more housing, i think, we definitely need to increase density in the westside of the city especially affordable housing, especially affordable housing for extremely low-income individuals. and something that is also top of mind for me is the unfortunate intention of 2550 irving. that was a project with concerns around ceqa, but unfortunate narratives that made me quite sad to see, like, no (indiscernible) in the sunset and i hope that in this plan that we might consider folding in education around the benefits of affordable housing. maybe you all have already considered that

but i think that is something that we as a city really need to get ahead of so the entire city understands that it's a good thing when affordable housing comes into a particular neighborhood and it's not a bad thing that you know, potentially lower income individuals are moving in and some of the misconceptions that are tied to that, but otherwise, this is amazing work and i thank you all so much. >> thank you, commissioner ruiz. commissioner imperial? >> thank you. alongside with other commissioners too, i applaud the process that the planning department took on this. it's very rare that we hear and here in the commission on the community engagement. usually there are always special project per project where there

wasn't enough community engagement but i'm happy to hear the planning department put time on it and i applaud carla too for -- sounds like all the community members are very appreciative of the efforts you have done and it really speaks on how community engagement is really important in the community planning process and earlier we have a discussion or including more budget in terms of like expanding the community engagement process for the planning department. i do have some questions in terms of the process of the sunset forward strategies and how it's going to be aligned with the housing element as well. so, in terms of the process, so now we are -- we're in the process of endorsement. what's going to be the next step in terms of, it sounds like there might be some

flexibility? if already some strategies that should be more prior court, can you be clear on the next steps of the strategies? >> planning department staff, thank you for your question. as the supervisor mar and carla indicated, sunset is providing us -- was a little ahead of the housing element in terms of grounding the work, identifying the priorities, indicating what were the housing needs and choices and how can we bring the resources that are needed in terms of housing and the connected transportation services businesses and other community services, so in a way, this is already establishing the footprint for the housing element implementation. the team is being formed right now within the planning department for housing implementation but you're seeing a preview of, ideally, how the housing element

could be moving forward in coordination with our supervisors office, community partners and other city agencies. >> so that means, like, of course, now that we're hearing the new timeline for a housing element perhaps, then, we've had a discussion in terms of, like, of course there's going to be a process of community engagement in terms of the rezoning too as well, so i will -- i guess my -- i'm just assuming that sunset forward is going to be that kind of -- a tool in all of that community engagement process as we're, you know, aligning this through the housing element so that's just -- i'm assuming. i'm trying to get a confirmation that that's the process that's going to happen when housing element, let's say, is approved, that the sunset forward is going to be that place for community engagement? >> that's correct. that's correct. as supervisor mar

indicated, there are some components of housing development capacity especially for affordable housing that will need to be incorporated but each district, each community will have specific items that will need to be added that interest community engagement. again, this is ahead of the curve. >> then my other question too is the transportation element because i believe we are going to hear transportation later this year or perhaps early next year and i'm curious as to the kind of conversations happening with sfcta, in terms of the transportation needs in the area. i live in d-7, technically d-7 but i'm very exposed to d4, you know, i'm on the (indiscernible) so i see that that's a great need in terms of the -- -- you know for the neighborhood as well. is that

something that's going to be a part of your transportation element? i'm trying to decide in terms of the process and the different elements, the housing and transportation element and is that something coming back to us in terms of the sunset forward in talking about the transportation? >> we can -- i mean, if you want a specific discussion on that, we can figure out what's the right timing for sunset forward and transit services. as you heard at the beginning of the sunset forward processes, there was -- there was assessment on what are the needs. in a sense the housing department -- there's a lot of analysis about population and mobility and if the population increase, what are the services need so while

there's still more work to do on the transportation element, we're using all the analytical infrastructure of the transportation analysis. >> that will be great if we can hear an update about the sunset forward in terms, as it coincides with transportation element as well. i would like to hear that. [laughter] since i'm also in the sunset area, living in sunset. another question to me is the adu program. and the funding because we've had a lot of discussion about how to robust the adu program and you know, i guess this is more of my curiosity in terms, like, what kind of an assessment we have had in terms of the funding that it would take to really have a good adu program and how accessible it is, yeah. >> that's a good question. we might need to do a little bit

more analysis, preliminary assessment was to open the opportunities for low-income homeowners who, as you know, have not been part of the accessory dwelling units, the adu program. we have seen a very successful implementation in many multifamily housing buildings but for some of these families, it was out of reach so hearing from the middle to low-income households in the sunset, not only they were interested but in many cases and supervisor mar can remind if i'm correct, they were interested in renting those units, affordable units so understanding the needs of the community and figuring out what are the options, so we have gone through a preliminary assessment. they are very close to get a plan approved in some cases. there are 30 specific

properties that were a part of this program but we need to assess what it will take them in terms of funding to actualize those units. >> yeah, yeah. i believe, well, i know this is part of the housing element as well, so that's why it's, you know, as we are trying to densify the westside and it's going to take a really good robust adu program, kind of like the small side preservation, i guess you can say. that's just my comment but if you like to make a comment more, supervisor mar. >> thank you, commissioner. that's a priority in working with the planning department and dbi and constituents on how we could accelerate adu applications permitting and construction. as mentioned, we created adu pilot program in

district four back in 2020 and it was just -- the planning department created it with asian inc. as a partner and that provided technical assistance to 30 homeowners in the sunset that wanted to take the first step in taking an adu but we're facing barriers so that was successful. lamar from asian inc. is here today and i sponsored the legislation earlier this year to create the housing development for homeowners so that would expand the adu resource and technical assistance program citywide and also expand it from adus to duplexes and fourplexes as allowed by sb9, so i know the planning department is, has been working on launching that new program. we found that homeowners are very interested, particularly asian homeowners in my district but i think citywide next panned tlg homes to meet the needs of their extended

family to increase the value of their home but it's very expensive and the permit process is complicated with the streamlining. there's been a lot of contention discussion about legislation, that goes beyond sb9 and i think, as one of the callers said, a lot of the analysis and including the planning department's consultants found it's not really feasibility, it doesn't pencil out for a developer to do a fourplex in a single-family home just because the high acquisition cost of the home but it's very -- i think it very much and i found from experience with the adu experience, it pencils out for a homen because they don't have -- they need support and assistance and financing and looking at including the financing in the housing development program.

>> since you're here, supervisor mar, i'm going to take advantage of you. one of the strategies is the four to six units building affordable housing and how is your discussion with that with ocd when it comes to affordable house and it's our smaller buildings? >> are you, was that a question about a specific project or -- >> not specific but in general in terms of -- what we perceived here in the planning commission is affordable housing is expensive to be built and especially if it's a smaller building that will take a lot of funding as well. how are the conversations with ocd? >> again. we're all extremely excited that we have the sunset districts first two affordable house, one hundred percent

affordable units. we're looking at other opportunities to do that. for sunset district and it's reflective in the sunset forward report, we don't (indiscernible) so i think that creates a challenge because for affordable housing development and market rate development, smaller sizes are more challenging to pencil out. that's a challenge. it's included in the sunset forward report. it's identify -- it identifies church sites that are vacant or underutilized where there affordable or mixed income. that's something i'm interested in working on and yeah. >> thank you so much, supervisor. those are my questions. >> on the transportation plan, that was part of sunset, the sunset forward process but it was done separately through the

deform ability study that i commission with the cta but it was very much aligned and happened at the same time as the sunset forward process so we'd be happy to share the transportation, and we'll follow up with you to share that. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. commissioner diamond? >> thank you. i too want to add my voice to the chorus, applauding all of the work that has been done by the various parties, nonprofits and government divisions that were involved and producing where we are with sunset forward. i want to drill deeper on the questions raised by commissioner imperial. i want to understand how we use this document specifically in guiding our decisions going forward. what is its status? it's not zone and a part of the general plan and not a cultural district we adopted although i understand that will be a part

of it? is it something staff will take into account and mention in their staff reports when describing to us, is it a guide we're supposed to be aware of as we think about our decision make and with the good work that went into this, i want to ensure it doesn't become a plan on the shelf that we remind ourselves from time-to-time but is incorporated into our decision-making so maybe director hillis, this is a question for you in terms what is its stat us and how do we use it. >> it's a good question. one, we started to implement it already. you can look it strategies around -- look at the strategies around house and they helped inform what's in our housing element and and partly because of the work we did in the sunset, with sunset forward. the

cultural district being formed and then building capacity in the community to help inform decisions we make in the future. the strategy around senior housing and implementing that, that came out of this, so it's a little bit of all of the above and maybe not, it's not this linear of a process but it will be that and more, i think, as we see projects happening, as we said, we go out and implement the housing element. we'll be working with the communities that we've been working with as part of sunset forward. so -- >> so, i saw when i read the housing element, some of the strategies of sunset forward are already incorporated in? correct. >> the two news scenarios that are potential distribution of

housing density that's focused in the sunset. they seem to be consistent with some of the language that's in the sunset forward, so i appreciate that and can understand that. i think maybe it's a request that whether we get staff reports on specific projects that are in the sunset that there be some language devoted to, how does this carry out of the goals of sunset forward or if it doesn't, that would be important to know as well, too. the same way you do with the cultural districts. i feel like there were so much excellent comprehensive community planning that went into this for this part of the city that it would be important to me in my decision-making to know what staff thought about how it implements, so it's a request. >> sure. it may evolve as the (indiscernible) gets developed for the cultural district and there may be land developments that we highlight in the staff report so it may evolve as we go

forward. but certainly, we can do that. >> thank you. second question. this is a question trumbling many of us as we're seeing -- question that's troubling many of us as we see state density bonus that's in front of us that does an excellent job of increasing density but there's -- what often accompanies the state density projects and they are doing something that we value which is providing onsite affordable housing but often times there's request for concessions and waivers that undermine lots of work from the planning department and the community groups over the years. and we have no choice given they are state density bonus projects in terms of granting those. how do we think about the strategies put forward? for example, there's discussion about family

house and two and three bedroom housing and how important is that. is that something a future developer of a state density bonus project can ask to be waived, you know, in return for providing a state density project. i'm using that as an example because i think we're all struggling with how much of the planning code that incorporates, you know, many of the things that's valuable to us are subject to the waiver and concession, previsions ever state density bonus projects. this project, other projects we see, i think are highlighting this for us and i'm wondering sort of, this is an example but it's a broader question about how far do developer ability goes in asking for those concessions. >> yeah. it's a great question. the unit next requirements, you can't -- you know, kind of have a waiver to remove those

requirements. that's a code requirement. but where that line is because obviously height, we've seen it with parking in the past, it gets confusing so as part -- you and i have talked about this earlier so as part of the housing element discussion, we can bring this issue to you as well to help us define and know where that line is and what can be washed or exempted as a part -- waived or exempted as a part of the that state density. >> that would be great because so much work has gone into this effort that i want to understand sort of, is it all set in stone or is some of it wavable by the projects and we should know that and the public should too. my last comment, i think one of the reasons i find the sunset forward documents so appealing is it combines in one place, the comprehensive total as to what makes a neighborhood vibrant and flourishing. it's a combination

of housing ask transportation and child -- and transportation and childcare and parks and access to retail and when we're in a big city of course, we have all of those elements that are, you know, separately addressed by the different elements of the general plan, but it's so appealing to seeing them all addressed together neighborhood by neighborhood and i'm wondering if there are lessons to be learned as we consider the housing element that has transportation elements and the transportation elements has impacts on downtown and everywhere else. how do we accomplish what this did is which is allowing us when we're looking at the general, what it takes to make a neighborhood work in its total. it's a fact question for all all of us because that's one of the elements i found so appealing. look at the perspective of the

residents, what makes the neighborhood function and what is not working well or what is working well or what don't people know about. there was a lot of discussion in the parks and open space session about how do we allow people to have better access to what already exist and it feels to me on a broader scale that's something i hope we can accomplish through all of our updates, thank you. kudos to all of the groups that were involved. >> great, commissioner diamond. vice-president moore? >> i'm speaking as commissioner number six and as we're going down the line, it gets harder and harder to say something which haven't been thoughtfully expressed before and what i'm doing by saying that, i'm thinking the thoughtfulness that everybody here individually has a broader discussion and i kind of want to expand on what commissioner diamond said and she said it very, very well.

this is the manifestation of san francisco neighborhood. sunset forward is an example of what comes together in the housing element. so i see actually what you all did and congratulations for doing it just at the right time. i see it a litmus test for our housing e. and based on the capacity -- and based on the housing building that is noticeable by everyone who have spoken, i hope that will provide the planning department with the strength to pushback and really sort out the challenges that we all have to meet here every week when it comes to this impossible decisions of what unfortunately in some form many of the state regulations are waiting for us to decide on. i hope that what you're saying will ultimately calibrate of how we successfully implement the housing element and the incredible housing

challenges this city is going to need in the future. that's primarily about equity. building building, building, is not the issue. we can build on the moon if we need to, however, how we meet, who we are building for, that's where the challenge lies and if we don't understand that, we can build ourselves to death but we will all be not living and it's simple what you're doing is indeed a perfect tool to calibrate the challenges ahead and i really want to ask ms. jim, i want to thank in particular because you're doing it on both ends. here's the incredible challenge of the housing element but you're taking a community and wisely leading it through capacity building, to having a voice and being heard. i think that's the biggest accomplishment of what sunset forward is all about. and i'm in full support of it and i want it thank you because the

biggest challenge will be to take that credibility into the housing element and have the rest of the city support that. and you are just one small element so this whole effort can shine, thank you. >> thank you. commissioner braun? >> yes. i just want to again echo all the things. [laughter] de mesa and the planning staff and ben and the family and youth network and all others in the process. that effort shows, i can't say enough positive things about it. i'm very supportive of this plan. it's the kind of implementation roadmap we need that has very clear actions and efforts that really deals with the cross-section of a lot of different entities that's involved in the community and in improving the sunset. and i echo also commissioner diamond's statement, this combines people and homes and businesses and culture and infrastructure,

mobility in a really comprehensive way that we don't often get the opportunity to address all together. one thing i noticed on the business side, it was nice to see that and this is specific, there's a focus on using flexibility in commercial uses within a space or cohabitation multiple businesses in a space. and with the evolution of our retail landscape and with the, you know, the growth of e-commerce and small businesses participating in that as well, it's flies to see that flexibility is -- it's nice to see this flexibility is acknowledged and nice and it's helpful to see more in our planning code and policies. the implementation monitoring program is great to see because i think that will help this to not be the plan on the shelf so i appreciate that. and i'm going to close with one question by implementation related to implementation. so, i like that the efforts that have gotten

underway are not one-off efforts about this plan but tying this plan into some broader efforts that are already being pushed forward by the city. i'm curious though for implementation overall, i mean, a lot of the implementation relies on outside agencies and departments. like, oewd and acd and sf mta, et cetera, public works and so i'm wondering was this reviewed by outside departments because as stated, it isn't the general plan which is the citywide coordinating document but it's the planning document. >> yeah. so, carla de mesa, planning staff. we were, like supervisor mar mentioned, we were working in coordination with the sf mta on the transportation part of it. we worked with ocd and oewd to really vet some of the strategies, what was realistic. but also most importantly, i think really recognizing that as

a planning department, you know, we are setting and guiding the future of the city but we are not overseers of other city departments and so, it's really important that we respect what other city agencies are doing and understanding what work they are already doing and how maybe we can identify where things are in alignment with what we're hear from community so with the conversations with ocd and oewd, that was what programs or opportunities are happening in your department that maybe we can just, like, extend over into the sunset or maybe make sunset small businesses and or homeowners aware that these programs already exist and how can we increase access? so i definitely was very cognoscente making sure it was in -- this plan was building relationships, acknowledging the work that other departments are already

doing and really just trying to align what we're hearing on the ground with what the city can offer and also working with those sister agencies to see what -- maybe the bigger goals that they want to also implement so maybe this is another avenue to really evaluate those big ideas. >> thank you for that. yeah. that's great to hear. it's not only about the capacity building within the community it several but capacity building across the agency and department lines to make this happen so that's really wonderful to hear and i really appreciate the work that has gone into this plan, thank you. >> great, thank you, commissioners. i just want to again say to all those who participated and i know many folks called in and many are in the room, this is a testament to not just the what you did. we can think about comprehensive planning and we can read a textbook about what you're supposed to do to come up with a comprehensive plan but the way

you worked together and collaborated ask had time and during the times where it was difficult to collaborate with people and we were learning new ways to work together and be together and communicate with each other during a stressful time and deal with challenges that many of us never imagined we would be dealing with so i want to say it's not what we're doing but the manner in which it was approached and thank you ms. mesa for being a relative of this and your skills being used for this effort. it speaks high value. i hope you took in the praise for those who called in and take a moment to celebrate. i know you're hard at work implementing but celebrate the great work you have done in accomplishment. i want to follow up on commissioner braun's comment around implication. that's where the rubber meets the road. thing was implemented a part of the plan and pie lot was underway which gives me confidence. i hope we we look toward our budget this year and

subsequent year, that we play a role of project managing, not just monitoring, a year has gone by and see what happened but continuing to have that connection with community, the relationships. you can't transfer those to another individual or to another agency but having that role of helping to coordinate, helping to bring in other agencies, other staff, and other community partners and other parts of the city or regional partners as needed to make ourselves available to shepherd not just the creation of the plan but its embodiment in the district so i look forward on how we do that and how we're going to replicate this. every neighborhood will want to have this, that's our biggest problem. everyone will want their neighborhood forward plan so we have to figure out how to accommodate that. i see commissioner imperial has her light on >> yes, i'd like to make a motion for endorsement. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. on that motion, then to adopt a

resolution endorsing the sunset forward action. commissioner braun? >> aye. >> commissioner ruiz? >> aye. >> commissioner diamond? >> aye. >> commissioner imperial? >> aye. >> commissioner koppel? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye >> commissioner president tanner? >> aye. >> so moved commissioners. that passes unanimously, 7 to 0. commissioners that will place us on items 12a and b for case numbers 2018002524cua and var found -- 20-20 fountain street. you'll consider the conditional use authorization. and planning code section will consider a variance. good afternoon commissioners, department staff, gabriel. this is a conditional use pursuant to planning code

207, 20 the.1 and 303 for the merger of two existing lots, construction of two three-story basement duplexes and the addition of an adu to existing single-family residential rinse. it will demolish and construct a deck along the existing rear building and construction additional decks and patios for approximately 2,618 square feet of open space. provide 4 off-street parking spaces and six class i bicycle parking spaces. the project site is approximately 7,083 square foot development lot that's developed within approximately 3,000 square feet, two story basements and single-family resident see. located at the rear of the lot, approximately 91 feet from the front property line. the existing single-family home does straddle an existing property

line that is currently divides existing development line into the two. (indiscernible) zoning district and the innot valley neighborhood. it's surrounded by one to three-story residential development including single-family residences. it is section 201 -- for development of five units on an existing hr 2 zoning. sunset back and session 134 rear yard requirement. prior to the submittal of the conditional use application, the project sponsors did have a pre-application meeting on august 234, 2017 -- august 24, 2017. eight members of the public attended. december 8, 2021, the project sponsors sent a letter to the neighborhood

with project updates and invitation to voicing any concerns and questions. however, since the publication of the project packet, the department received 15 letters in opposition. members of the public expressing opposition to state the projectsen ability to provide a front setback and tradition between the adjacent developments to be compatible with the neighborhood and mitigate the adjacent properties to on-street parking and exculpation and water damage. the project was reviewed for compliance with ceqa with regard to geology and water quality and natural habitat and was determined to be exempt as a class ii categorical exemption. the department recommends approval and believes the project is desirable for the reasons and the project is on balance and consistent with policies in the general plan and meets all applicable planning code requirements and the

project will mks milliliters the use of underdeveloped lot and provide five additional dwelling units to the city's housing stock and project will provide a use compatible with the (indiscernible) compatible in size, density and height and architectural -- this concludes staff's presentation and i'm available for questions and the project sponsor has a presentation as well. >> ready? >> yeah, have you five minutes. >> already. good evening, commissioners, my name is earl wise and i'm the architect for the project. pictured here is

the subject property. it's a plat and there's bull nose on the street. the original house you can see is in back, it was built in 1906 and it's in poor condition. this aerial shows the block face. very strong box face of our property and the one to the right or north which is 16 fountain. arguably this is the most egregious view of the property. this aerial proposal to the south, we're trying to match the blackface with materials and windows. to the north next of 16, we have an entire side property setback and then planning didn't call for this but we added a second upper story setback because we felt like it softened the corner. this is the lost from above. our buildings are to the front. it's not going to have an impact on the current mid-block open space. this is our site plan. as

you can see, we have the stairs to the north and that's the first setback. we have a second setback on the top and the entire upper floor. the setback on all sides. we are not going out to the 45% rear yard. it's a steep lot and there's no useable yard space so we're creating a yard for the tenants. this shows the construction zone. 34 fountain, there will have four but most of this is away from any of the neighbors buildings and we're setback on 16 is it the red zones where the heavy equipment is. we won't be next to any buildings. now, a quick note on neighborhood outreach. i'm actually the second architect on this one. the first one retired. we actually took his proposal and reduced that. we felt like it was sprawling

out over the yard. because of this we did a second outreach. we put a big red stamp on things, there's construction and we added a letter. those should be in your packet. we've heard from three people and they were curious of the exit of the building and to the front, they said we don't support anything. with very been working with number 34 and work with the architect. they want to do work on their project so we're sharing geotechnical, all kinds of stuff with them. big, big question here. variances, to members in the audience, the rear building is legal nonconforming meaning it was built before the code and it doesn't comply with the permit code to do anything to that building. we're just proposing a remodel and trying to make it smaller. it requires a variance. planning asked for and we provided a rental adu but that

doesn't require a variance. to the front, the building furthest away on this photo, that doesn't require a front variance because it matches 34, so what we're talking about is to the right here at 16 fountain. that's where we're looking for the front variance and there were logic in that. now, we can push that back, but this is a 15-foot deep sidewalk. what happens is that impacts our parking and i know you don't care about parking but if people aren't parking inside, they will park in that setback. what's the benefit of pushing back to 16 to the side there? none. it's a garage. there's no living space there. so i think the compromise was and again, this was during the last architect is we have a double side setback. we're going to maintain a strong blackface

and that is going to do the most to decrease impact to number 12. a couple of other things came up on hydrology. there was a comment that we're taking the water away, so that's going to create problems. we put that question to our gio tech hydrologist and all of those reports are available -- >> okay. sorry about that. >> a lot of information, man. >> i have a lot more if you need it but -- >> anyway. in short, we're simply trying to work with what we have there. i'm assuming that bing is no more. >> i have no idea what that was. >> oh, you don't. that wasn't my timing thing. >> well, your time is up in five seconds anyway. >> ah, well, same thing. i tried. i have a lot more information, trees and everything else if you need it. hopefully, that's all in your

package. thank you. >> okay. members of the public, if you want to address the commission on this matter, now would -- bring them over here and i'll pass them out. a sign there says staff beyond this point. >> sorry, i think your time is running if you want to begin your comment. >> good afternoon planning commissioners, i'm carl, the owner of 16 fountain street and i'm direct neighbor of the proposed construction. the front setback variance was requested to make the front facades in cord a- ordinance with the front facades on the left. this narrow residential design guideline disregards the context of the building on the right, 16 fountain street, our home which front setback is about 30 feet

away from the front property line. so, far nor appropriate residential design guidelines section 3 paragraph varied from setbacks actually ask in situations such as this with various setbacks, the new property should articulate the front facade to create a -- this is on the other end of the fountain street grant creating asymmetrical situation and the duplex, 6668 fountain street that is shown in the handout solves similar front back by averaging the setback and stepping the front facade. this created an architectural precedence of how it should be established ask the -- of the block. i urge the commission to reject the front setback variance application as a stepped facade would not require variance and more in agreement with the architect character of

our phase of fountain street and conforming to residential design guidelines. in additio -- it will have direct views while the building in the back of the lot will have view through our back windows. and this necessitate window treatments on both window asks protected light. denying the variance would solve the privacy issue and the project calls for an extensive exculpation reaching more than 30 feet above grade level and being a few feet away from our foundation. the fountain street block is extremely steep and has underground springs coming down from twin peaks that necessitates a lot of drains in our backyards and around our foundations. the prevailing soil of the block is clay that is

susceptible to expand and contracting depending on the water content and the huge scale retaining walls will require an extensive network of drains that will lower the water level and soiled water content and the shrinking of the soil will most likely cause extensive damage to not only our foundation and property but possibly other neighbors. despite the neighbors letters to the planning department in response ceqa evaluation, seems no hydrology study was performed as a part of the sierra. i urge the commission to request hydrology study from the builder to study the impacting of the -- >> that's your time, sir. >> okay. thank you for listening. >> good afternoon, my name is chris luis and i'm the owner and occupier of 33 fountain street

which is the property nearly directly across from the subject property and one over. in addition to supporting the comments made by the previous speaker, i would say that within the fountain street neighborhood, we're all for redevelopment. we already have a property next door to us that, where they are developing two units, further down the street, there's another house redeveloped and we're looking forward to this project being redeveloped, our concern is more around the size and scope of the project, six units just seem to be over the top for the feel and character of the fountain street neighborhood. thank you very much. >> last call for public comment here in the chambers, please come forward if you're calling in remotely. you need to press

star three. when you hear your line has been unmuted, that's your indication to begin speaking. >> oh, hi. good afternoon, it's george. i was going to comment on this but i came back to the computer. i've sent an e-mail before and i can't remember where i sent it about two months ago and there's six or seven projects very much like this in noe valley that sold their entitlement if they are going to do it but it's a question the commission should consider because you're giving, you're granting this conditional use, you know, it's a valuable thing. [laughter] and i just think it's a question worth asking because we're asking because it's good to go, what you're doing and what you're giving is going to be built or monetized. that's any

question, thanks, bye. on >> i didn't intend to do this but it's important to know that unfortunately, i'm the owner of the largest building on the block. it's one block long down the street. i'm at the far end of the corner of 25th. it's a steep grade that there is a sign on my property that says steep grade and trucks not advised and believe me, they can't go up it. they get stuck. this building is a six-unit apartment building, legally. it was purchased that way in the early 80s because our other property was taken by emmant domain by the city and county of -- eminent domain by the city of san francisco. we

aren't wealthy people and my husband was a third generation of san francisco born and born >> 1918 and he was in the navy when i was a little child but he became a public school administrator and i was a teacher, so we were not wealthy people at all. but the property was taken by the city and in order to save what little bit we had, it had to be reinvested and i happened to be in the hospital in surgery when he went out to get a newspaper, they had stands in those days and the real-estate guide was beside it. that was more interesting to him. we had to do something or lose the money and he opened it and he saw a building. it looked like heck but he called right away because there were pay phones inside of the lobby of the hospital. he called and said meet me there to the person advertising it. they met. he

signed for the property. that's how i got the biggest building on fountain street. it is a six-unit building with room for two more units in the envelope of the building which you did approve many, many years ago and then you lost the plans, not you people, but the city and after everything was already worked on, we have windows, we have a fire escape, we have sliding glass doors which they allowed to be left and plumbing is in, the electrical is in, the sprinklers are in, the fire things are in. the inspections are written on the sheetrock wall. there it sits and there's a group of two more units right there within the envelope and nobody cares. it's all deleted. i don't understand. and now we're talking about building something else because we need space. it doesn't make sense to

me. i really disapprove of what's happening. i walked passed it because i rely on public transportation and there isn't. i must walk although they call me overly elderly, 86 in january but i must walk the steep hills care carrying groceries but there's a violation posted. it says 8/22/22. >> thank you, ma'am. thank you, ma'am. that's your time. >> it has not been addressed. that's my problem. >> good afternoon, my name is noel and i live across the street from the property and 37 fountain street. i'm going to finish reading what coral couldn't finish reading. i would urge the planning commission to not allow merging of the two lots. the lot merger only seems to enable and make the units only less affordable.

able to build over almost every square foot of the two lots destroying all green space and make the units less affordable. this is (indiscernible) with neighboring lots. this backyard and -- i have been living on that street for 20 years and i have seen my zoo keepers and caregivers leave the neighborhood because they couldn't be there any more. right now the survey says san franciscans are miserable. we want to make sure this takes into account the quality-of-life because quite frankly in one street, this construction is going to throw the whole ascetic of the street off balance and leave us with no open spaces and leave us with units but in reality they will not eliminate the housing crisis because they won't be affordable to another zoo keeper, a secretary or care

giver. thank you so much and thank you for your consideration. >> okay. last call for public comment. again, if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three. if you're in the chambers, come forward no. no addition request to speak, public comment is close and this matter is before you. >> i want to thank to the staff and project sponsor and those who called in and came to participate in the hearing today. turn it over to commissioner who's have questions or comments or a motion? administrator who is not ms. watty. >> thank you and good to see you. i want to make one clarification and the project -- the setback applies to the full lot which is both. i wanted to check in with the project sponsor. i understand the desire to merge the existing home is in the rear and the property line runs to the center of it, it's

my understanding. but merging the lots ask creating one larger lot and you have chosen two separate buildings as opposed to a larger building, can you speak to the rationale for you all too build the two separate buildings. >> absolutely. by the way, the original building was built on two lots. the city merged it mid-century and for whatever reason where it was resold recently, it was cut up again so it keeps going back and forth between that. to do a single curb cut that's a different building. that's with fire, with exiting, with all of it. these are technically two unit and single-family is the same so we're trying to keep more smaller units because we felt it was more in keeping with the neighborhood, very wide lot. that was the logic behind it. i don't know if i answered your

question. [laughter] we were trying to stay away from an apartment building verses a series of two family houses. >> does that answer your question? >> great. vice-president. >> i have a question for mr. wise. could you explain about joining window -- adjoining windows and impact on privacy, the plans as depicted in your set don't show us -- [multiple voices] would you take us through that whole -- >> absolutely. this was on my and i couldn't talk fast enough. anyway, the flat out thing with windows, if we can look into somebody else, they can look into us. this is terrible. we always align our windows or eliminate them. i would highly recommend that the project's

sponsor reach out to us so we know what we're looking at and we always align those and often onsite, if it's a bathroom or a kitchen that doesn't require, just need the light to come through, we always use privacy glazing but the privacy issue, it works both ways and it is, we have absolutely no desire to put any impact on them because it will impact us. >> in a way, i don't feel you're answering my question. perhaps you could illustrate on your plan with the adjoining -- where the adjoining windows are so we understand. if there could be issues and did have you any dialogue with the adjoining neighbors who are in front of us speaking about impact on privacy because -- >> i'm work with number 34. they have a big deck to the back there and we're working with 34 because they contacted us. we would love to work with 16. they haven't contacted us yet.

hopefully this will be a genesis that they will contact us but we'll take out windows. i don't know if that's clearly illustrated. i thought it was clearly illustrated on the side elevations but the other thing i don't know because i don't know 16 is what is this window? does it go to a closet or is this a bedroom? that's a whole different question. but we will definitely be working with them to avoid any kind of privacy conflict. >> i just like to remind us, what is in front of us today is an approval of what is shown in your drawings set and that question is not really answered because in the majority of cases and thank you, mr. wise, i appreciate your answer, in the majority of cases, we either have photos of adjoining buildings or we have indications on the plans of the adjoining buildings, where windows and lights, et cetera are, for me that particular question in response to the adjoining neighbor asking, i wasn't able to particularly discern that

aspect. thank you, mr. wise. >> thank you, commissioner moore. any other comments or questions from other commissioners? commissioner imperial? >> yes. i guess this is a question whether to -- to the zoning administrator or project sponsor because in terms of -- this one comment that was about the front set yard variance, the comment was about -- (indiscernible) into the general front. i do not really see an issue with the variance you're seeking into it but can you elaborate on the front setback variance. >> absolutely. thank you for the question. so the planning code requires in our residential districts that new projects on lots of new development, they

provide a front setback that's the average of the two adjacent buildings on the two adjacent lodges but up to a maximum of 15 feet. and so, sometimes you have both -- both adjacent lots have setbacks that's equal or sometimes you get situations like this where one side lots are flushed and the other side, you have a building deep like the building that's deep on this lot so in this case, it creates a front setback requirement of the maximum which is 15 feet. there is an option in the planning code to do an alternative means which is, when you have one adjacent property or building closer to the street and one further back, to take that same area to represent that front setback and basically zigzag it to have more mass adjacent to the building that's closer to the street and less mass closer to the building that's further away to the street to give a little tiered effect. so that's the requirement for this project is the 15-foot setback. they are

proposing zero and that's why it's triggering the front setback variance for this case. >> okay. thank you for that. i personally don't see any issue with this project. i would like to hear from other commissioners but i guess other commissioners have comments, thank you. >> thank you, commissioner imperial? commissioner koppel. >> i want a motion to approve. >> second. >> thank you. commissioner moore? >> i wanted to add that in terms of identifying a steep site, i consider this to be a successful project. the buildings among each other don't really affect each other given the steepness and the rear building will continue to operate the way it always did. what i do like is that a nice adu is added to the rear building. i think that's successfully done in terms of quality of what the adu offers is quite a bit. we're seeing constrained, very kind of

complicated adus which do not really speak much about livability but just jamming it in. this particular adu does the opposite. it creates a nice living space, so i am in support of the project and i hope that the adjoining neighbors will find a way to work with architect wise to very quickly address any issues about windows and privacy. >> commissioner diamond? >> just a question to staff. through the normal design refinement process is the window issue -- is the window issue something you would focus on? >> yeah. actually, i have an elevation that shows the outline of the adjacent building window asks how it falls on that -- and how it falls on that side. >> if you can put it on the overhead, that would be great. there we go. >> this is that side elevation

and you can hopefully -- roughly see them. so, here is one window. here's another window. there's one more. here's another window here. so, this shows where the outlines are there in comparison to where they fall with the proposed building. and yeah, that's a consideration as part of kind of looking at the project and being mindful of light with the adjacent property. >> thank you. >> thank you. mr. t. >> thank you again. another question for the project sponsor. just in my review of the variance, it's a little different in we're looking at the five specific findings and the -- kind of the proposal is to disregard the front setback requirement. we definitely have some situations that are going on with this case that are a little bit, we have to take into account, there's a large lot and there's a lot of elevation,

right. this is a lot of topography and upsloping and the nature of the block. did you explore or can you speak to the impacts of tearing at all, the building -- tiering the building and providing a design transition to that context. >> right. really, we were trying to figure out what would you gain by a front setback? it's only a garage next door so what we did, we voluntary set the top. you don't care about windows, but then we did another second side setback because it softens the corner and that's going to have much less impact on 16 fountain than the front. the front, again, i'm afraid people are going to park in that. we can landscape and try to but i didn't think about

anything. we focused on pushing the side back, i guess is what -- usually when you stagger the front, it's hard. it creates other problems and i didn't see it created any solutions >> i'm prepared to support the motion. maybe from my edification. this picture was shown by one of the public commenters, it's suggesting to do the same thing but my understanding is that type of garage would not be allowed in the front setback either. it would be a landscaped setback. the building and including the garage which is contained within the building would be pushed back 15 feet for both of those front buildings, that's correct, right? >> so generally speak being, yes. when you have a front setback requirement, there are smaller items that may go into the front setback like bay windows and small fences and things like that, front entry

steps. if there is adequate slope on the site, there's previsions in the code, if there's 50% of slope within that front setback, that you can have a garage structure in that front setback. the cause of that slope, i don't know if that's the case specifically for these lots or not but that's why you see sometimes, on floods you'll see a garage and deck on top and the building is setback another 15 feet behind that. the code does allow that when there's sufficient slope. i don't flow if that's the case in this scenario. >> we don't have the information to make that determination today. that's a determination -- just so i understand, lots are being merged, both buildings need the same setback or one building tiered even though the lot was merged now. >> that nuance wouldn't change the front setback requirement here because either way, the -- whether they have two separate lots or not, the a

-- the adjacent buildings will have the same code because it gives 50 feet. it's the same either way. it's a full 15-foot setback that would be the requirement here. >> great. well, you think, i don't see any other comments from commissioners or questions so i think we're prepared to vote. >> commissioners there's a motion seconded to approve this matter with conditions on that motion. [roll call] so moved, commissioners, that motions passes unanimously, 7 to 0. commissioners that will place us -- >> quickly -- >> sorry. >> i'm going to close the public hear and support overall but take under advisement to work on refinements slightly related to the nature of the front setback.

thank you. >> very good. commissioners, that will place us on items, item 13 has been continued. it will place us on items 14a and b for cases 2019-000499prj. and 2021-0 is 2569drm at one la avanzada and first an informational presentation and then discretionary review. >> good afternoon, president tanner accident fellow commissioners, jeff, planning department staff. i'm presenting two items today. i will be presenting them just for organization, no purposes. the dr first and then the informational information. but to begin, so the item before you

are request for mandatory discretionary review for the work to be performed on few sutro tower to replace horizontal cladding and informational presentation to discuss resolutions to the sponsor, sutro tower incorporated referred to fti. the request to make permanent the removed cladding of all vertical elements. the request for the discretionary review will allow for removal and panels at sutro towers at the second through fourth levels. the existing interior facing panels will be removed as they are nearing the end of functional life and will be replaced with a panel cladding consistent, consisting of a comfortable material. perez solution 11399, adopted by the planning commission, mandatory discretionary review is required

for all building permit applications regarding sutro tower and transmission building or any part of the site. the standard and conditions adopted on february 16, 2006, for all permits, accompanies this building permit to ensure sufficient installation and inspection and fcc emission compliance and neighborhood communication. there's a condition of approval adding construction timeline to require the replacement to occur in a time plan that's consistent with the projects environmental approval. i would like to note as part of the standard conditions of approval, fti performs yearly inspections and the inspection manual. in this agreement, in agreement with the neighbors related to the horizontal addition, sutro decided to modify the conditions

of approval to make a statement about yearly inspections to occur within the horizontal elements and there was no mention to the elements being a part of the yearly inspections and this is a document that's outside of the written conditions of approval that are being presented before the commission today. the department would like to recommend that the commission does take dr to approve the project as proposed and with the proposed conditions of approval added to the project, clarification of different to the language in the case report, so the commission does need to take dr to attach the conditions of approval on to the building permit within their approval. great. the department is also here to provide important background information relating to the broader events and processes concerning the tower that may form the

commission's deliberation. without authorization from the city, sft removed all cladding on the exterior of the tower vertical elements or the legs. portions of the this work occurred without planning commission approval, a building permit or less view under the "california environmental quality act." in july of 2019, the tower was a subject to a mandatory discretionary review hearing and was approved for the temporary cladding removal and subsequent reinstallation of the tower's legs above the fourth level. in the environmental document, in addendum to an eir, that project was approved under the word, the temporary removal described as removal that would be or sorry, replacement would occur within six months of all improvements being made per information from the project sponsor and all improvements

have been completed as of august this year which would leave four months remaining in the timeframe as described in that environmental approval back in 2019. in recent events in june of 2021, they requested to meet with the department to discuss the environmental review necessary to proceed with the complete cladding removal of the vertical elements. immediately prior to this meeting, the department became aware that the complete removal of all vertical cladding had been completed. so in other words, the cladding below the fourth level comprising approximately 2/3 of the tower's height had been removed. in between july 2021 and the present, the department has worked with sti to bring residential solution to the violation in a fashion that's consistent with the planning code, ceqa and city policy. the sponsor's proposal to be considered or preferred proposal

is the permanent removal of the cladding of all vertical elements and it would be supplemented with subsequent painting to reflect the existing conditions or the previous conditions of and more, sorry, the striping of white and aviation orange or potentially any other paint that could be requested by commission. since the publication, there has been letters citing safety concerns with or citing the benefit of safety concerns with limiting any additional reinstallation related, construction activities and the general safety and noise benefits of a non-claded tower. the letter and significant tours received from the neighbors -- signatures received from the neighbors are generally from the vicinity of the tower including residence of the midtown terrace

and twin peaks and midtown terrace letter was attached with signatures from approximately 90 residents and the letter from the twin peaks neighbor was supplemented with a letter or cigna tours of approximately 25 -- signatures of approximately 25 letters and the staff received letter from the federal communication commission with no -- but a request for expeditious decision. staff recommends that the preparation of environmental document for ceqa -- per ceqa to perform studies of the full range of options to abate the present violation, those could include options that have been discussed previously with staff which include the no cladding alternative replacement alternative or replacing an alternative in a modified cladding material which has been studied by the sponsor. there we

go. great. this concludes staff's presentation. i'm available for any questions and i'm here with several staff members including persons from our environmental planning and preservation teams. and we're here to answer any questions the commission may have. thank you. >> supervisor melgar, will you -- did you have some remarks? >> i have words, mr. ion and thank you so much. hello, commissioners. it's a pleasure to see you in person. i brought a show and tell. this was my campaign sign when i ran for office to become the district 7 supervisor. you see what's there? do you see the cladding? no. you don't. [laughter] it's iconic. it's iconic for the district and it's iconic for the city but in the westside, you know, despite the history of the

tower, which was born with a little bit of contentiousness, the surrounding neighborhood now has incredible goodwill towards the tower but also the folks who worked there who have gone above and beyond in terms of being really good neighbors, communicating with the folks who live around the tower, maintaining the grounds, doing everything they can to maintain this iconic landmark for our city. but they are good employers. they have been, you know, really great to work with since i've been supervisor, so i will say there are several issues that i want to address in the memo to the commission and also in the staff recommendation. i'm not going to touch about the horizontal cladding because i don't think there's any, you know, there's no controversy in that. but i do want to take a little bit of issue even though this is not

before you, i just feel like i have to say it, the determination that this is a character defining feature of this historic landmark, i want us to talk about that. i know that has already been approved but this cladding came down without permits and you know, you have to do something about that. i understand you need to address it. but reel know nobody noticed. heather knight hasn't written about it. nobody noticed that the cladding is down until it was pointed out and the neighbors were like, oh yeah. and that's great because it's not going to fall on us if there's an earthquake or high wind. that's an issue i want us to think about when making these recommendations whether it rises to this level but to -- when it rises to this level but what you have to weigh in on and mr. horn, thank you for the presentation. but did not address is the improvements that

are made down the tower are required by the federal communications commission. they are not only required by paid for as they should be because most of us watch tv and we benefit from the benefit from what the tower provides and they are under deadline and needs to happen by june to get reimbursed. otherwise, they have to pay for it out of pocket. those of -- all the stations that have space on the tower will end up having to pay for it. so, you know, we are here as public servants to make sure that the institutions in our city, that things, you know, follow the rules and we need to do that but at the same time, i think we need to be reasonable in how we are enforcing these rules to make sure that organizations that are as successful as the sutro tower

can go about their business. it's yes an iconic place, it was on my campaign sign but it's also a working piece of equipment that we all benefit from, we all receive these services to i implore you to look at this judiciously and i don't they we should require them to put back the vertical cladding. it's danger us and doesn't serve a purpose other than cosmetic and you know, even though we have statutory deadlines that we need to meet, the review time for the public to look at the eir and the comments but we can't, but we can about the review time that it takes the planning staff to do it, sorry guys. but you know, this is important enough that i do think that we should help them, that we should be able to do what we need to do, do this

eir which we have started, you know, months ago since we knew this was going to be an issue but we could have done it and we still could do it and meet the deadline, so i, i'm here to ask you for help, so that we can get this done so we can maintain this iconic place in our city that everyone looks at, that has now become sort of a symbol of san francisco in a way that will last into the future but also allow them to conduct their business, to be able to upgrade their equipment whether they need to and not putting their workers at risk by having enormous piece of metals that can slice through the air and cut somebody's head off so i'm asking you to use your discretion and you know, be judicious in how you are deciding on this issue, and i will be around if any of you

want to have a conversation after this. thank you so much. >> thank you, supervisor. i appreciate your time. >> members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the, excuse me, project sponsor. you have five minutes. >> thank you. president tanner, vice-president moore and members of the commission, i'm kristin peters. representing sutro tower inc. known as sti. it's the owner and operator of sutro tower. as you have heard me say before, we're lucky to have it. we are here today seeking approval for our horizontal cladding replacement project which replaces the interior facing horizontal panels on levels two, and three four which protect the sensitive equipment inside. this is noncontroversial so i won't spend time on this topic and we're happy to answer

any questions you have. our cladding elimination project is of concern to many, so i'll spend the remainder of my time on the issues of particular interest or concern to sti related to that process. first as you like know know by now and you have heard the architectural cladding on the vertical legs of sutro tower have been temporary removed to facilitate the repacking project and structural improvements you approved in 2019. cladding is currently stored at the base of the tower. we request that sti be allowed to leave off the cladding which has temporary been removed from the verticals legs until a final decision by planning commission is made on the vertical cladding elimination. next, vertical cladding elimination, which is the permanent removal of the cladding located on sutro tower's vertical legs is strongly favored by sti, engineering experts, its tenants

and sutro towers neighbors and sutro tower is safer without the architectural tower on its legs and eliminating weight and decreases the number of components which could fail or simply losen and rattle. it creates a safer work environment for the tower workers with an already dangerous job of suspending themselves hundreds of feet in the air while they work to maintain, restore and improve the tower. also, while vertical cladding may be noticeable to a small fraction of those who sees the towers close up, as you can see in the photo i provided here and maybe you can't see it yet, the difference is not significant but it was also provided to you in our letter brief. the alternative of replacing the vertical cladding is a several year process which will have a noise impact to not only replace the cladding but construct further structural improvements

to support the stronger cladding that's necessary to meet the upgraded code. the cost of the replacement alternative is also approaching $50 million which is a significant amount. while the majority of sti's tenants are he will he /* -- they are eligible, two are not. they would have to bear the cost out of pocket. one of the two stations not eligible for their fair share reimbursement is a noncommercial broadcaster with an annual operating budget of $4 million. or roughly half of its share if cladding replacement is required. the caveat to federal government replacing -- contracts signed and committed before july 3, 2023. we're encouraging the planning department to expedite environmental review of the vertical cladding elimination to

enable those sutro broadcasters subject to fcc repacking requirements to meet the timeline established by congress to obtain reimbursement of the associated repack cost. to meet the fcc deadline, we anticipate we need a decision on vertical cladding elimination by the end of april. finally, we would be grateful today if the commission can provide us with a sense of the commissions current inclination to approve vertical cladding and elimination assuming and eventually finding of no significant impact as after environment review. this is an important issue to sutro tower, its owners and employees but its tenant stations and its neighbors. -- we are sure have you questions and we have ron, engineer of record to address questions you have about the engineering, raul, vice-president chief operating officer, some of sti tower works are will be to describe the

dangers of working on the tower while the vertical leg was clad and we have representatives from each of our tenants and you'll hear from our neighbor. we are open to other questions you may have. thank you for your consideration. >> okay. thank you. now, it is the opportunity for members of the public to comment on this matter. if you're in the chambers, please come forward. calling in remotely, press star three. go ahead, sir. go ahead, sir. >> hi, thank you for hearing us today. my name is darronand we hold the license to the before mentioned television station, krbc. it isn't everyday that municipal infrastructure

decisions affect the future of free beloved and popular educational services for children and families but today is that day. northern california public media i nonprofit tv operation operating two stations broadcasting from sutro tower, krcb is one of those stations mentioned. we are a small public station with an annual operating budget of $4 million, nor cal presents programs for free about health care issues to housing crisis and civic affairs. we also present bilingual programs, shows about california based indigenous culture and more well-known programs like sesame street, daniel tiger and molly of de nali. to sustain our efforts, we raise funds directly from the public, households across the city and all neighborhoods, your constituents, our viewers willingly donate their hard earned monday see so we can continue to operate and serve. and we pledge in return to be there for them everyday 24 hours

a day. krcb is not a part of the management of sutro tower. we're merely a tenant but as a tenant, we are must share in the cost of tower construction and tower upkeep. and expedited decision is essential to our survival. for us, the recladding of the tower is not a theoretical construction project or ascetic discussion but rather an ex-essential threat at this time. the result of recladding could result in total cost for our two stations of upwards of $14 million, $7 million for each of those stations. this would seriously curtail our ability to bring free public tv programs to the people of san francisco and could result in employment layoffs and diminishment of our community outreach activity for an organization with a small budget. we respectfully ask this commission to act quickly and we recommend permanent removal of the vertical clad and thank you

so much for hearing us today. thank you. >> seeing no other members in the chambers, i take that back. >> hello, my name is jim rose and vice-president and general manager of cron, we're one of the formers of sti. i wanted to reinforce what my contemporary darron mentioned. 6 to $7 million in escalated cost is a significant portion of our operating budget and at cron, we do 13 hours of local broadcast news everyday which was exceptionally important, always upon but exceptionally important during catastrophic times coming through the covid crisis so-to-speak. it would be a real burden for us to reconsider or operating budget to 6 to $7 million in expenses that we would be forced to rethink how

we cover the market and how we get news and information out to all of our audiences across all platforms so we are here in support of elimination of the cladding and we appreciate your consideration. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i want to reiterate some things that jim and daren said but i'm the president and general manager of -- my name is tom known as abc7. as you may know, we've been broadcasting in san francisco, from san francisco for more than 70 years. and i want to reiterate the mission we believe in serving our viewers and your constituents. we broadcast over the air for free. we have tremendous resources right now to provide immediate live coverage, a breaking news and important community events and as a public service and sutro

tower is critical as you have heard to how we do that and social security central on our emergency infrastructure. we provide more than 42 hours ever regularly scheduled live news each week and this year we're proud to say we provided the first live coverage of the return of the san francisco pride parade and weekend for the first time in several years. so, in addition, we respectfully request your expedited action to allow sutro to move forward quickly with preferred alternative of the permanent removal of the cladding as the superintendent mentioned if we miss the deadline for federal money, our resources will be strained and an impact to your constituents and the deadline is around the corner and we want to be ready to assist the public in the san francisco and the bay area in the event of an earthquake or situation. we don't ever want to compromise

that, thank you very much. >> hello. i'm scott war earn, the general manager of kpi and kpw. i reiterate the same thing as the other broadcasters. i have been on the job since march so i had to get caught up with this really quickly. i went up to sutro tower yesterday to take a look at it firsthand to get a better understanding of what this was. that tower supports our television stations free over the air broadcast as well as the tv and radio stations across the area. the scc required television stations to move their frequency or repack their broadcast signals to create new bandwidth for wire services both private and public and the fcc said it would pay the cost for that. much of the work requires the removal of the

cladding that's the metal skin on the legs of the tower to get the equipment and to get to the equipment in and transmission lines and far away it's hard to tell the difference between the parts that's clad, that are unclad but i went up there to see this and when you get closer, it's noticeable but two things stand out, one, you noticed the appearance the tower when you're close and next it. it's not prettier or any uglier with or without that cladding. two, any work on that tower is dangerous for the people who are doing the work for the people who are below them doing the work. i can't imagine the impact of dropping one of those huge metal sheets about the size of two sheetrock sheets from that height, talking to the

engineers, i understand that the clads is detrimental to the integrity of the tower, both weight and wind resistance. safety for the people working on the tower, safety for the people living under the tower and the overall integrity should be time. we're under a tight fcc deadline to get the project finished or lose tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. those millions of dollars for all of our stations, we need those to provide the free news and information services to our communities. without that, we would have to scale back those services. we're at a critical point. the time is of essence. we respectfully ask that you expedite the eir report needed to complete this project so we can meet the fcc's deadlines to avoid the financial strain that would limit our ability to serve the community. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is

(indiscernible) chin and i have been the neighborhood liaison to sutro since 1998, a neighborhood that has 800 homes directly below to sutro tower and adjacent. one thing i'd like to correct from mr. horn's statement is that the number of signatures i submitted on behalf of my neighborhood was over a hundred. actually 108 and i have the originals here if anyone wants to see them. i'm here with my neighborhood's voice to request that the planning department and planning commission prioritize the safety of our neighborhood when considering cladding on the tower. we believe that consideration of the available expert structural engineering opinions will result in the conclusion that the safest

option is to keep the verdict camacho cladding off the tower and to make that removal permanent -- and a neighborhood is well aware of the safety risk of falling cladding and objects off the tower while work is being done since both have happened. in 2016, a panel, an 80-pound panel fell from one of the legs of the tower on to the walk -- the public walkway around summit reservoir directly below the tower. in 1998, a row of metal tape fell off the tower while work was being done and fell through the window and into the den of a home in midtown terrace -- >> ma'am, if you can speak into microphone more. >> sorry. >> thank you.

>> this is a statement from the homeowner about that event. since -- another thing that i would like to correct is a statement from supervisor melgar, while we have much goodwill towards chris and peters and the current team thank you sutro tower, it's not necessarily true that the neighborhood has a lot of goodwill towards the tower itself which we see as an industrial facility in the middle of our residential neighborhood. i just conclude that we ask you to give careful consideration to the safety issues and to make a decision that will protect the safety of the tower and the neighborhood below it. thank you. >> okay. if there are no other members of the public in the chambers that wish to -- [mic is off] if anyone else in the chamber wishes to speak, line up on the screen side of the room. >> commissioners, i'll walter

kaplan. i have been the liaison from forest noels to sutro tower for almost 25 years along with shalin, forest knowles is across clean den and a group of over four hundred homes adjacent to the tower and within the fall zone and the best way to talk about this, parapets that used to be built in san francisco along with victorians are an embellishment to the victorians but victorians themselves that are iconic. sutro tower is iconic. the embellishments, the cladding on the tower is merely an embellishment to the tower.

it was put there when constructed and i don't believe it would be on that tower today if it was built to today's building codes. that cladding wouldn't be built there today. those sheets, 12-feet by 20 feet came off the tower and almost took somebody's head off as he was walking his dog some years ago so we think it doesn't belong there and shouldn't be there and not need to be replaced but to top off topic for a moment, 25 years ago i did land use work. i was younger. i had brown hair and a brown beard back then. all you were new faces to the planning process as far as i can recall but there's something wrong with the system where this project as well as so many others take so long to get themselves to the commission and get there without all of the staff work having been done to get things tied up in a way that

gets projects moving along. you've got great staff, you've got great leadership. you've always had great staff and great leadership but there's just something wrong that keeps things so bottled up that they take so long to get here and it's on the last day at the 11th hour that work is done to tidy up the loose ends to get projects to the approval stage and somehow i would hope that all can be fixed some time within the tenure of all you people. i thank you for listening to me. >> okay. if there are no other members of the public in the chambers wishing to submit comment, we'll go to our remote callers. when you hear your line has been unmuted, that's your

indication to begin speaking. >> good afternoon, my name is christine and in 1998, a long with the between peaks (indiscernible). today, i'm standing in support the sutro tower and when i found out that sutro tower removed the vertical cladding from its structure, i would have sent them a bottle of champagne and a thank you note and not a notice of violation. i was shocked to see their horn testify before you today and not include in his report the panels have flown off that tower on several occasions. nearly decapitating people who walked around the reservoir through the base of sutro tower. sutro tower is an essential facility and not a building and doesn't require the aviation paneling that you seem to be so attached to and the fact of the matter is that you have no jurisdiction over that paneling. it's red and

white stripes determined by the faa. mr. horn did not tell you that in 1966 when the tower was approved, it was to be painted gold, not red and white. and it was only in 1970 when the tower was approved, that the red and white striping was required by the faa. i would like to invite every member of the planning commission, mr. horn and the director of planning to walk under sutro tower with the neighborhood group, the tower is significantly quieter without the paneling. there is no roadling at night when the -- rattling at night when the panel was blowing in the wind and no cables we used to hear on a continuous basis, bombarding or bumping up against the tower structure. while it -- i feel old now. i'm 51 years old and i see young people from your department talking about sutro tower like it's a rock star. it's a facility that needs to

maintain its structural integrity. please support a no vertical cladding position and please don't require this tower to invest more dollars in an eir it shouldn't have to. the money fussed for the structural towers, you're making them chase their tail on an eir and we will come back to the same agreement that the paneling is unsafe. we don't need $300,000 of street metal hangs over the public's health which is what you'll require if you make them place the panel back on after this pony and dog show. i support the project sponsor and no cladding and extending an invitation to all of you to walk this tower with the neighbors who understand the complexities of what we're living with and what looms over our heads at night.

this tower is 977 feet tall. taller than the (indiscernible) tower and it's an essential -- >> thank you. that's your time. >> hi, think christian french and i'm calling for the television station kcns. kcns is a family owned television station and in partnership with ktnc, kemo and kemtp together bring over 12 programs streams including spanish language and climb needs language channels -- chinese language channels not available anywhere else in the market. all of our channels are available free and over the air n. an effort not to reiterate everything said before me which i think has been eloquently stated, i do want to point out all of the stations that are a

part of the repack are part of a federally mandated repack. this is not the fcc's decision whether or not they can delay the process. the federal government has put a statutory deadline in place and the fcc has already gone out of their way to delay the deadline as long as possible for the stations to -- that are being forced to be part of this repack process to be reimbursed and you heard from the pbs station where they are not being reimbursed but the stations being reimbursed are also at a vulnerable point in the process because the fcc does not have it in their rights to extend payment deadlines. we do understand that a lot of delays took place because of covid and all, everybody's hand is in the process have been tied bus we're up against a statutory deadline that cannot be changed. i do want to point out a couple of the benefits i heard from a number of different people but when i listened to all of the benefits of removing cladding,

we have the noise and disturbance to the neighbors and the surrounding neighborhoods. we have the time, we are talking about a process to reinstall and reinforce the tower that's several years at least and whether wind and fog and very, very difficult conditions on this tower, so when we make a decision or the committee makes a decision to say put the cladding back up, we're talking about many years and many, many, many unforeseen delays that can take place in a very difficult working environment. the benefits of removing the cladding permanently from -- it meets the wind requirement that the tower needs to conform to. financially you heard from each individual station being responsible for $7 million. permanent removal from, of the

cladding eliminating this financial responsibility and expedites this by several years and finally, it's not just neighbors in the neighborhood that are subject to potential risk and danger but the men and women climbing this tower and working in these dangerous conditions. there is an -- there's annie mission amount of money saved. please expedite this. >> if you're in the chambers, come forward. coming remotely, press star three. seeing -- there's one more. go ahead, caller. >> hi. hi. thank you, president, vice-president and commissioners, this is ann and i work kpbu and joining from

washington, d.c. i wanted to reiterate mr. french and our colleagues plea to get an expedited review on this. i have done fcc regulatory work so if the commission has questions to the process for reimbursement, i'm happy to answer any questions but the bottom line is that our invoice deadline to complete the repact was actually due on september 6th and we worked with the commission, sti has been instrumental in keeping them apprise so we can have additional time. christine was clear on her discussion that we are out of time. once we get that passed -- passed in the beginning of the year, is a decision of re-clad or not

reclad and for public safety reasons and we're concerned about ensuring structural integrity and keeping the public safety, the neighbors safe, the tower workers safe but you know, it really is -- we're at a point where to ensure all the stations get reimbursed that we have, we have a path forward and invoice accordingly for that. we can't say wait until the environmental review is complete and sub split to the fcc. we have to have a path with invoices established well in advance and i think able is probably the very -- april is the latest we can put those in because they've got to go through a lot of financial review with the others, at any time you're talking about federal dollars, every penny is looked at and every penny is scrutinized so we want to get

our dks in a row and we hope to get expediting processing for the cladding. we appreciate your time and attention to this, so thank you very much. >> okay, commissioners, public comment is closed and this matter is before you. >> start by thanking all those who called in and gave item today. thank you, supervisor melgar for being here as well. we're in a pickle as a commission, so i'm hoping we can figure out how to thread this needle and have a solution that is reasonable but also realistic. and i think that is going to be a challenge but i'm confident in my fellow commissioners, we'll find a way. we'll start with commissioner diamond. >> thank you very much. and thank you to all the people who testified. i don't usually go onsite visits for projects in front of us but i did decide it was important to visit sutro

tower because i think it's really impossible to understand what is going on when you're in other parts of the city, so earlier this week, i did go up there and saw the vertical panels on the ground, saw the new horizontal replacement panels because the tower was completely in fog up to level four so i could see nothing, did i go put aside my fear of heights and go into this tiny little elevator that basically can fit one worker standing on a box and be squished next to him and went up and walked around levels two and four. i couldn't convince myself to go any higher than four. [laughter] and what i saw was the conditions under which the workers take care of that tower.

very tight constrained spaces and very far in the air. it takes a lot of skill to do that work and also came to understand that when repairs are necessary, to equipment that's attached to the vertical trellis, and first they have to take the panels off and do the repair and put the panels back. really increasing the risk of safety to the workers who are there. so, with that as background, i read the extensive amount of materials, had many discussions with staff and with the project sponsor and my way of thinking of this is the following, i divide this into three subjects, similar to supervisor melgar. one is the issue about the replacement of the horizontal panels. i'm going

to right now say that i move to approve to take dr with the conditions because i view that as noncontroversial and put it to the side. the second is, they did take down the panels from levels, the upper panels were removed with the permit and lower panels were not. it's a violation and there should be a penalty. we should work out what it is or work it out with staff but that doesn't get at all in my way of thinking about what the right permanent solution is. i'll say to the extent, anybody thinks they should be putting up those temporary panels that they took off and putting them back up temporary while we worked this out, i think that's a really irresponsible and nonsense solution because those, even if we ultimately decide that vertical cladding is necessary, it both be those

panels because they are not strong enough, a different set of vertical panels would have to be created so i feel like we're accomplishing nothing but putting them up temporary and until we can come up with a permanent solution, it's a waste of money and it increases danger and it's a safety hazard too the workers and the neighbors, so i put that issue aside. so, most of my thinking about this has been about the process to get to an answer. is it with vertical cladding or is it without vertical cladding? i feel like we're in this pickle because an historic resource evaluation done and staff step in, an hr e was done that came to the determination that something about that cladding is historic or it contributes to the historic document and if we want

to remove, we have to choice before consider going through a focused eir. like supervisor melgar, i question that determination about whether or not those corrugated metal panels really are an important characteristic and i don't know whether we have the opportunity to revisit that and i would like to leave that question to be answered because i could see that we could conclude that the tower itself is now iconic and historic and the height contributes and the shape of the tower is important and maybe the colors are important but corrugated metal around it which is barely visible if you're not up close, to me, it's not obvious and that's a historical element and it puts us in a position to do a focused eir

rather than doing a negative declaration which could move along faster. even if we conclude, okay, that we have to do the eir, i know that it is technically feasible to get an eir done not by april by may or june. i recognize we have many priorities as a city including housing. and that it is troubling to have to say this one comes ahead of everything else but as i personally think about it, i'm going to put safety first. i'm always going to put safety first when dealing with priorities and dealing with historic issues and i'm talking about the safety of the workers and the safety of the people who live underneath. it's not just that it's a better situation for

the neighbors in long one without the panels because of its reduced wind and noise but flying panels are a really big concern and i think that we really need to be very mindful of the danger that's imposed to the people that live underneath this. the attorney indicated that she would like us to give our indication as to how we might ultimately vote on this, which of course we can't tell you -- we can't have discussion without ceqa clearance. we're prohibited unless city attorney tells me otherwise which i'm sure he won't, we can't tell you how we're going to vote but we can tell you what we're thinking and the factors that's important to us and what we might ultimate vote so i'm going to start off by saying to you, of course i have to be open to whether the ceqa documentation says but even

if it concludes there's an unmitigated significant impact, for me, i feel like thus far based upon what i have heard that there's justification for making findings of overriding consideration givingen the safety impacts so for me -- given the safety impacts so for me, one commissioner who still wants to see the environmental review because i have to, that is where i ultimately will land and i very much hope that staff can find a way to get this focused eir which is just on historic preservation done in time in order to get the decision that you need, to get contracts wet so we can get reimbursement because it feels like we're getting in the way of ourselves through our process and not letting commonsense drive what i think is a responsible decision. that's my position on this. >> thank you, commissioner diamond. i appreciate that. did

you want to respond -- do you want a response from staff on the topic? >> say that again? >> did you want to respond to staff comments. >> that's great. >> alice, planning department staff. i'm one of the preservation managers for the planning department. and i just wanted to clarify that yes, we did find the hr e, that it determined it's a resource and the cladding is a character defining feature. i did want to clarify though that while the application that has come in, right now for an environmental impact report. that's because that is one of the determinations that might come out of the initial study that we would be doing on this project. so, we're reviewing that and we appreciate your comments on this. we'll take those under consideration and we're look to go see whether or not there are other options in regard to the environmental review and the historic preservation review and whether or not an med is another option. >> okay. i'm glad to hear that

because you're saying that you have not come to the conclusion it has to be a focused eir and possible for an mud. >> when the applications come in, often we will determine the level of environmental review we think is the highest in regard to med or eir and a part of the study, we'll make the determination. >> if you make the determination that it has to be an eir, is it technically feasible to get it done assuming reprioritization? done in time for them. i think april seems optimistic quite frankly but may or early june? >> i believe the deputy ero can answer that question more clearly. i think in regard to the technical requirements for ceqa, getting it done by april would not be possible. >> okay. is the deputy ero --

>> deputy ero and i just wanted to say that we have technical requirements that are related to comment period as well as going to the hpc, if we decide this is an eir for historic issues, we would have to go there so given all those requirements, i would say anything before june would be pretty tight. >> okay. >> we would have to really work out, if we re-prioritized or other work to see how we get it done but april is infeasible. >> i didn't think you could do april but i'm happy to hear june is a possibilities, maybe. >> maybe possible. >> i understand. >> we have to re-prioritize them and do a lot of juggling of the other houses projects and we have the housing elements in johnstown. >> the housing element is a very top priority for us, i understand that. if the eir was

done though, we still have to come back here in order to have the mandatory dr with the appropriate notice and i don't know if we can get there by the end of june but i would like to see us try. >> yes. we will take a look at the initial study to see what we can do creatively with mitigation measures to get -- maybe we don't need alternatives and work with mitigation measures and be creative to maybe it less significant. we have heard your concerns and we think the safety issues is a big deal as well. so you know, this is something we'll take into consideration when we do our work. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. before i go to commissioner moore, i have a question from the project sponsor to understand the time and understanding you're needing to get reimbursement and ways to submit it to the federal government, i'm trying to understand the timeframe. you need conclusion regarding the

ultimate and final decision about the cladding, is it concern about the putting the cladding back up and taking it down. are you submitting for reimbursement for removing the cladding. help us understand what kind of timeline we are under to do by what or sutro tower is and we're trying to be partners in meeting that deadline to make sure the reimbursement can occur. >> if ann is online, she's the expert. we need bank accounts out by july 3rd. we need invoices submitted by the stations for reimbursement and the contracts have to be in place and we have had to paid those monies so we might be able to be creative with the contract in order to advance funds to a contractor and have them in

their pocket but those monies disappear on july 3rd, so everything has to be completed, i mean, end -- june, that's the absolute, absolutely end of the period of time that we -- >> this is for the entire scope of work, so i think there's different aspects of the project or multiple projects depending on how you're looking at it, we're talking beginning the totality and this cladding is one piece. >> this is ann, if you can hear me. >> yes, we can hear you. >> i'll just stress, april was really when the commission is going to say that's our job for you to pick a path so if you're going with the cladding elimination, we need the invoices for what that will cost so we can commit the funds. we may get creative and say when april that will be but if we

don't have a path to cladding elimination or re-clad, if we get into june, we've already lost the battle and that's, again, we do ultimately, even if we don't clad and repaint, it's a 22 million plus million project. if you reclad, it's $48 million and it's a 7-way split amongst the stations involved in both the auction and the repack and two won't get reimbursed so taking a $7 million hit to particularly, i won't speak for them but public tv stations, that can be an extreme cut to their budget and it could force them in severe distress, so we really want to make sure we have a path to present to the commission and say this is where we're going for to commit the funds and they are pressed upon us that the statutory deadline

is not within their control and then [audio difficulties] the auditing required for our invoicing to get reimbursed so really we are -- our time is of the essence and we started this project back in 2017. i know covid intervened so if there's a way we can be creative with this and public safety is very, very paramount. i had someone familiar with the historic preservation, it's important to look at this holistically but we implore you, the way we can get to a certain decision in time for reimbursement. that's ensure to ensure we serve our community with so much news and information. >> thank you, ma'am. >> that's a lot there. >> thank you very much. okay. >> thank you very much for the answer. i'm going to call next on commissioner moore. >> thank you. >> i think the urgency of this

project is clear by the number of those who spoke and presented their case and there's a lot of questions we hear siting here will do everything in order to help make this happen as quickly as possible. we like to bring the cladding in question into the context of the tower itself. and the age. it supports a vital function of city communication, but i would like to ask perhaps engineering, mr. hamburger, if he's here, the tower was built at an age thinking differently how we do things today. why is that cladding on the tower in the first place? >> could you repeat the question. >> my question is why is there

cladding on the tower in the first place. >> i'm sorry. i didn't understand the question. >> why was cladding applied to the tower in the first place. >> it was an architectural decision. the tower was actually built without cladding initially and then was added a few years later. >> so you're saying it's a decorative element. >> the cladding itself is not a structural element but architectural element. >> it can be a decorative element and all things. >> it was decorative. >> is the attachment of the cladding to the tower affecting the structure itself? how is it -- is it hung? is it bolted? welded or how is it attached >> >> before it was removed and the cladding was removed with self-tapping screws like at an ace hardware store. the design of the cladding and its attachment that was done in the

1970s was done to resist a wind pressure of 25 pounds per square foot which is what the san francisco building code required at that era. the current code would require that cladding be strong enough and attached to the tower to resist wind pressures as high as 90 pounds per square foot. so -- >> so would you have to fasten in a different way and have cladding -- >> if it goes back, it will be fattened with larger butt -- fastened with larger bolts and cladding to the tower. >> did the cladding help protect the steel in my form or shape. >> actually, cladding is debt practice mental to the steel. several people have mentioned already that the tower is frequently immersed in fog. when the fog comes in, moisture collects between the cladding and structural steel. and with

the clads present, it takes a long time for the moisture to dry and that causes corrosion of the steel underneath the cladding. in fact we did a major project about 12 years ago when we pulled off the cladding one piece at a time and inspecting the steel, removed that rust present and had to go in and weld new plates on to many of the members to replace the area of steel that had been lost. >> so your judgment is removal of the cladding would actually help for better performance and maintenance of the tower? >> absolutely. >> is there any kind of coating in the world of new coat that would be applied to give the structure kind of additional protection? >> yes. we do these days, we use an epoxy type coating. that's designed for marine applications to resist the salt air environment on the tower. and these coatings have, can be

rated from ten to 20 year life so we would use a modern cladding on the legs. >> thank you for clarifying that. it's a labor intensive continued maintenance project because ten years in a structure like that goes fast and we see that at the golden gate bridge, it's a project always under construction and never stops so this is one and instead of horizontal will be -- the reason i'm asking is also, what -- what is the affect on the acoustic performance. all of a sudden there was a lot of noise which people did not anticipate. would you anticipate that there's any impact on noise? >> there has been an arrow las tick acoustic study. the finding of the study is the tower would

not create that type of noise. we were aware of the golden gate issues and specifically looked at it because of that. >> i'm asking this question for everyone else to hear and there's more detail in what i'm asking but basic understanding of the performance of the tower under a changed physical environment, i think it's really important for this commission to also immediately bring into the context of historic preservation and perhaps moving the tower into the 21st century, i want to be careful of what i'm saying here because i cannot undermine any historic preservation discussion or decision that is made by experts, i'm not a historic preservation expert but i would like the commission to consider any improvement made for the tower moving forward would be essential. so thank you very much for being available to answer any questions. >> you're welcome, thank you.

>> thank you commissioner moore for the questions and insightful in our discussion. commissioner braun >> yes, i have a few thoughts and questions. first of all, i'll say i know the base of the tower very well. i often run and walk in the trails and run along the reservoirs adjacent to the surrounding neighbors and i did not notice the cladding had been removed. and i'm embarrassed to say in some ways but i look at it all the time and i didn't pickup on it. however, what i'm thinking here is i can give the benefit of the doubt that the removal, the temporary removal of the cladding from the complete vertical tower was an oversight or something along those lines. my understanding is that regardless, it was supposed to be a temporary removal and

replaced. i would generally be in favor of allowing an extension of that timeline before the replacement would occur. i mean, that's what i'm thinking about while this issue is being sorted out. i do, a lot of my questions were addressed. i have a question about the timing and a cost question too. knowing that getting resolution on the options for cladding or no cladding or some other solutions and knowing that may not happen until may and june and too late for reimbursement potentially, i'm curious to hear if, my question is, hypothetically, if the cladding was permanently removed, that was the solution or allowed, what kind of cost is associated with that? maybe this is partly an engineering question. i'm

trying to figure out if that happened too late for the reimbursement but the decision is permanent removal, does a lot of work have to happen on the tower without the cladding or is it at a state where it's okay without the cladding? >> so, functionally, the tower is not reliant on the clad and the cladding has been down for some time and the tower has been functioning and the only thing that would be done to the tower if permission were gained to leave the cladding permanently would be to paint the tower and there's been discussion between

planning staff and sutro tower and to resemble the prior appearance or paint it a gray just to let it blend into the background, the cost of either of those options would be the same. it's a painting cost and painting is something that the tower is, does repetitively. >> the structure elements, they get painted regularly anyway, is that right for corrosion protection. >> the structure elements do get paints. regularly is an interval of 10 to 20 years and we do annual inspections with a prior agreement with the planning department. [laughter] those annual inspections because of the fog do constantly show rust and corrosion on the tower and as that is found, that is cleaned up with grinding and spot repainting is done as

necessary to cover the areas that were rusted. >> thank you. i don't need to rehash what has already been said here but generally, i do hope we can expedite the decision about the permanent solution for the tower for all the reasons that have been brought up. >> thank you, commissioner braun and perhaps just to ask a question, did you want to add something to the conversation? >> thank you, commissioner, dan with staff. commissioner braun to your question and president tanner, you touched on this earlier, the question of safety and a level of work performed today verses that which needs to be performed going forward. and i want to acknowledge this is very, very complicated. mr. horn and i were on the phone this morning with ms. peters. i want us to be clear that the work proposed by sutro tower for the

repacking for the grade and safety in terms of their proposed or removal of all panels, that work is complete. that work is entirely finished and we reimbursement for that work to the extent that work is reimbursable have all been submitted so the reimbursement process, if the cladding were to remain down permanently, it's concluded. i think and i would allow others to weigh in on this, the question is what comes if at some point in the future, there was a decision to reinstall some cladding and reimbursement for that work but to the extent that the current work requires legalization. the speed of the eir with respect to reimbursement is really a non-issue. i thought we should be clear on that point. >> thank you for that because i

was going to follow up on commissioner braun's question to further understand that, so thank you for that clarity. commissioner imperial? >> >> thank you, mr. cider for that clarification. that's big information that i did not understand. but given what all the other commissioners comments as well and also all the comments here, of course, as a part of the process is the eir and i think a lot of the discussion and sorry, even the questions that we're asking will be part of the eir and as to the mitigation measures, that will also be included in the eir itself that we also have to review and whether again, that's why i'm looking forward for a joint hearing historic preservation commission meeting in the future because this is

the kind of information i would like to see, if the cladding is a historical element. but finding that you know, (indiscernible) itself, it's good to have these really in the eir. as to the process and again, this is more a question to the department whether we could really expedited. i would like to see it expedited but given the priorities of the department, there's a lot of things in front of us and thank you mr. cider for giving that -- well, information because there is some sort of an urgency if the reimbursement is for the future and whether the removal of the cladding should be permanent. that give me more of a confidence that even the eir is in by april, let's say, that,

hmm, i guess if the eir was released by april and the reimbursement for that deadline will be, i guess that's my question, will it still be by june? >> it's a good question, commissioner. let me try and rephrase it if i can and i invite my colleague to correct me if i'm miss characterizing this. should the eir be completed, regardless if the eir is completed and if the decision to the cladding doesn't need to be reimbursed, there's no work for which reimbursement would be sought. >> ms. peters is shaking her head. did you want to add to that? >> if what i characterized is different than this morning -- >> ms. peters, can you address the comment?

>> so i want to take a step back. the lore sdon tag cladding replacement -- the horizontal cladding replacement, that's a part of the project not completed yet but we need that approved first so we can get those in. obviously, we anticipate with whether it's a 30-week project or so, we're hopeful we're going to be able to accomplish that and get those, all those reimbursement receipts into the fcc by the spring. however, painting of the tower is also a repack expense because of the fact that we had to remove the cladding and now all of these exposed features need to be painted. that's about a $10 million expense. so, that is a repack expense that needs to be submitted under contract to the fcc in advance of that july 3, 2023, deadline. in

addition, as dan cider pointed out, there is, in the event we have to pivot, there is also the fact that we, there's the whole potential replacement that we would want to submit, so we have to have either the replacement or the painting under contract and as a committed fund to the fcc long before the proof date of july 3, 2023. >> so everything pretty much, the reimbursement ends by the deadline -- the deadline is july 3, 2023? >> yes. the funds must be reimbursed by the fcc to the federal government on july 3, 2023. that's a statutory date that the funds go back to them. >> thank you again for that clearer clarification for us to consider. yes, we are in a pickle here as a commission. [laughter] and again, the sul towers and

residents are trying to get reassurance from the commission that we would support an expedited eir and i think for me, i would like to get an issuance from the department if that can be done. >> i mean, just to address that, i get the situation we're in. i think it's tough to say we can meet the deadline that the tower has. now, if the ultimate decision is to keep the cladding off, it sounds like, the only potential cost is kind of the painting of the tower. i don't know if the tower could submit for that in advance and expectation. that could be a decision that the commission enters into if the tower needs to be painted regardless of the cladding being put back on or off, it seems like that could be done. i don't want to speak for the tower. i think what the tower is dealing with, there's a risk. right. you make a decision

and you've got eir before you, there may be an alternative to put a different cladding on that's feasible and may cost a significant amount that the tower then would not be able to seek reimbursement for. so, i think you heard from our ceqa team. we'll make every effort to, you know, we hear you all that you want to see us try to get this schedule and expedite it. it doesn't sound like you want us to put that in front of housing projects but as you know, there's not a ton of huge project, housing projects before us these days so we'll look at the schedule and we'll do everything possible we can to kind of move forward on an expedited time schedule but it's good be tough to make an april date as you have heard given the statutory deadline for an eir process. we'll look at it and partnering with the tower to

date to get this before you and get a decision made on the cladding or no cladding. >> thank you, director hillis for that. i'll just want to thank all the commissioners for their thoughtful dialogue. i think we're trying to problem solve here so i want to appreciate the partnership, the thought partnership. i want to say and i would be remised if i didn't that we're not here before of any action of the commission is taken. we're here because the action that sutro tower took to remove building permits to remove cladding and we move this portion of the project from the eir from the rest of the project and it was a decision not made by us and made by sti. we want to be collaborative partners and we want to provide public service for many folks but it's pretty unfortunate that we're here trying to help solve a problem that i think could have been solved, it seems like if this

remained as a part of the initial eir. maybe i have that misunderstanding wrong so i want to say that. i hope the supervisor works with sti on any remedy or ways to make a mends for working without permits in this city and it's something this commission deal was and it is frustrating for people coming after the fact after things are done and we have to figure out what to do and so, i'm happy that we're being collaborative. and sometimes we're not happy with folks who have done work without permits and looking to us to solve the problem. we're doing it begin but on behalf of the residents of san francisco, that's why we're doing that. i want to be clear and that's unfortunate we're here. with that said, director hillis you summarized it well, is the risk. we can't sit here and tell you what we'll decide about an analysis yet performed and don't know the level of analysis we need to perform if i'm understanding. it's not fair and a part of our process to opine

on how we'll decide. you heard what our logic is regarding the cladding and you go forward entering an agreement with painting -- you go forward with something that does not end up happening and you know, next year is a long time and anything can happen so there's a risk there. that's not a risk we created by created by your actions so i'm not sure what we can really do beyond give you our thoughts at this point in time and beg the department to expedite an eir but i want to recognize and i know the department is trying its best to say we'll do our best this is the timelines that you have to go through for ceqa. what do you really think could be the earlier given both constraints on consultants, staff, and just the statutory deadlines we would need to meet in terms of noticing and public commenting and all of that.

>> danny chin, deputy ero to the commission. there are at least 60 to 80 days that are statutory (indiscernible) for other things so taking that out, we would probably not -- we still need to do the work to put the document together and i would say if we re-prioritized other things, potentially, i mean, if we put a lot of effort and a lot of staff on this, probably june, we could, you know, make it happen. because that's nine months. we've never done it before. we did (indiscernible) pretty quickly but that itself took 12

to 16 months. >> this would depend on the level of analysis that's deemed appropriate, is that correct? >> yes. if we do an eir. if we were to come to the conclusion that we have mitigation measures that bring the significant impact to less than significant levels, we would be looking at a mitigated negative declaration which would considerably shorten the timeline. >> okay. >> i'm hope and praying that's where we land. >> there's a possibility there's some risk but there's a possibilities, so with that commissioners, i mean, i think the other project and we're agreeing we're fine with that and want to move forward, and with cladding, without having seen the environmental review, i would agree with many comments of the commission and the public here, it's not a feature that's significantly sticking out when we look at the tower and part of what we think is the iconic parts of the tower, so i can see a pathway where we understand more about the analysis and understand what roles the

cladding really plays. i'm concerned about the safety of the workers, the safety of folks who are apparently near misses from the fallen panels and that's not to be taken lightly with understanding the tower. with that said, i'm open with other commissioner comments or motions? >> i believe commissioner diamond made a motion. >> i haven't heard a second. >> second. >> is that what you wanted to do, commissioner imperial? okay. >> if there's nothing further, commissioners, a motion has been seconded to take dr and approve the project with the conditions outlined by staff on that motion. [roll call] so moved commissioners, that motion passes unanimously, 7 to 0. that will conclude this item and take us to your dr calendar.

15 has been continued or -- >> okay. good afternoon and welcome back to the san francisco planning commission hearing for thursday, october 13, 2022. commissioners, we left off under your discretionary review calendar. item 15 has been withdrawn. leaving us with item 16 and then we'll take up the consent calendar item that fell off, so item 16, case number 2018-017283d rp at 476 lombard street and discretionary review.

>> good evening, commissioners. mr. winslow. this was heard january 28, 2021. as a public request for discretionary review. from shelly bradford bell on behalf of barbara surla of 468 lombard street. the planning commission approved the project by not taking discretion mayor a review by a vote of 4 to 3 with commissioners imperial, moore, and tanner descending. subsequently, the july 15, 2020, categorical exemption issued for project proposed was appealed to the board of supervisors. on june 29, 2022, the board overturned the july 15, 2020, cat-x in its motion, m21-00. the

board reversed the decision -- determination by the planning department that the project is categorically exempt from ceqa as the record before the board of supervisors includes subsequent evidence that the light wells on the west facade and the roof structure are character defining features of the project that would be altered or destroyed by the project and therefore the project may cause a substantial adverse change in the significance of a historic resource and directed the planning department to set aside that categorical exemption and require an a mroep yacht level of -- consideration of the project approval, i apologize. as a result, the july 15, 2020, review was rescinded. in response to the board's findings, the project sponsor made changes to the proposed project and the planning department performed additional

review for the proposed project and issued a new categorically exemption on july 18, 2022. the department review of this revised project confirms it conforms to the planning code and meets guidelines related to the scale of the street, preservation of light and air and will not cause adverse impact to the historic resource as proposed and you can see the more detailed findings in the hr er part two that's included in your packet. specifically, the horizontal addition to the third story has been reduced from the original proposal to be setback 15 feet from the front building front so that it's minimally visible from the street. the third story addition and further setback four-foot-six from the west property line to maintain the existing light wells and three foot three-and-a-half inches from the neighboring

building to the east to resip kate. staff reviewed this and the front setback in combination with of the height of the existing front parapet and the side setbacks adequately maintains the building and third story structure with its hip roof is being retained. you proposed spiral stair from the third floor to the roof deck has been internalized. and the department's preservation staff reviewed this proposal and determined the side setbacks of the a maintains -- with these modifications, staff deems there are no exceptional and the building has been designed to respect the historic resource and adjacent neighbors within the context of the guidelines. therefore, staff recommends not taking dr and approving the

project with the new cad-x, thank you. >> okay. dr requester, you have five minutes. >> hello commissioners, am i on. there it is. hello commissioners, i'm smelly bell on behalf of the sturliff. we seek a fair and equitable outcome. four members of this commission voted for a project that was misrepresented to the public, using plans that hadn't been signed off by staff prior to last year's hearing, we have it on the overhead, we told staff and the director the wrong plans were in the packet. we did so with enough time to correct the error and present an above board packet to you. when we mentioned this during the hearing, it went ignored by four four commissioner wloz despite

having the wrong plans voted to take, not take dr and approve the plans dated february 26, 2020, without modifications. fortunately, our ceqa appeal was upheld and the board, by the board, revisions made to the current plans were made to the incorrect february 2020 plans not the july 2020 balloons and setback ceiling heights and reduction in the math and third floor addition is not included and how can mans not approved by staff be before the commission. i would hope city attorney would weigh in on this to bring the issue back into the sunlight for full public disclosure. equally important, the ceqa review remains flawed. the third floor addition and extension will be visible from the westward towards stockton and eastward toward grant and the analysis should have been 20 feet from the project, east and we have,

not just from the front of the building. if so, it would have revealed significant significant impacts of the project on the neighborhood. the board upheld our ceqa appeal stated in the findings that at tering the west facade or altering or removing the two light wells on the west facade or rear roof structure could cause change in the historic resource. they said it wasn't appropriate and level of review but a new one provided and the plans call for demolition and historic rooftop structure and removal of the two windows and modification on the light well on the westside of the building. all of the changes ignore and deny the board's findings. the ceqa exemption determination deemed inappropriate by the board was grossly incorrect. it should be

existing square footage of two thousand 750 and proposed at 3,192. with inadequate plans, this project will be larger than shared with the public or approved by staff. a new review too was prepared july 18, 2022, but not a new review one. staff provided a review one from 2019 which is outdated. the 2019 review staff stated, if the north beach context statement were in final draft or adopted and the property was included in the boundaries, the property could be considered a contributor to the district. this property is mentioned by address and with photos as an architectural resource to north beach in the north beach context plan. in january this year, the board passed a resolution urging

planning and preservation commission to adopt the final draft of the plan which has been in the department since october 2020. a new her won is missing and must be included to do an analysis of the draft and context statement. a fair and equitable transparent and above board process for the people of san francisco requires proper drawings with proper historic review and proper approvals by staff. this project fails to meet all of those requirements. please take dr and deny this project. thank you. >> okay, project sponsor, you have five minutes.

>> good afternoon, my name is renee, and together with my husband steve and we're the owners of 476 lombard street and my husband is unable to join us because he's under cancer treatment and not able to be here. i want to thank the planning department and the planning commission for allowing me to speak but i want to apologize for taking your valuable time which would be a simple house remodel. you may have -- you have clearly many more important things to consider such as discussed earlier today. you have before you over two hundred pages of documentation related to this project which is itself absurd and 131 of those pages are the appellant's arguments which are reproductions of old plans copies of old communication and a kitchen sink of argument designed to confuse the commission and detract from the issue at hand. let me summarize

what i believe is the issue. one neighbor, the sterling who live next door and they own that property and they don't want us to remodel the property. they said that from the day we moved in. plain and simple, they want to throw everything at us so we will go away. they want to throw everything at you so that there will be confusion and distraction about what really is at issue, but be clear, we're not going away. our home remodel was previously approved both by plan and planning commission. it was designed to be code compliant. culturally sensitive and retained all historic elements of the property. unlike the descriptions provided by the appellant, this is not a massive project. in fact, it's quite modest and even after the remodel, we will be the smallest house anywhere in that neighborhood. unfortunately, we're here today because of the disagreement with and the persistent objectives of this one neighbor who actually doesn't even live at the property but uses it as a rental. they do not want us to

make changes to our home and they continue to throw every objection in place and every roadblock to allowing us and causing us to delay our ability to live in our home. they have changed their arguments over the years. they first objected to the size of the project, then they objected to design elements and historic elements. what are they going to propose next. we planned to remodel our home -- my 91-year-old mother lives with us and partially disable and my adult daughter lives with us and my husband is disabled and we want to make our home comfortable to all members of our family can enjoy the property. we consider ourselves to be sensitive to the neighborhood, we consider ourselves to be good neighbors and based on the sturlis wishes, we had multiple neighborhood meeting because they didn't like the date we made and we modified the third floor from 1409 feet to 980 and the roof deck was

reloosed 20% from 485 feet to 355 feet and we further tooshg the elements they objected to and internalized them and we can't even have the elevator go up to the top so my disabled mother and husband can enjoy that space. but we've done everything and then at the board of supervisors hearings, they claimed there were other historical elements that never came up before. we disagree with their one consultant who made that point but we said okay, we're going to incorporate in our plans just so we can move forward and finally live in our home as we see fit. i leave you with one thought and one request, i appreciate the fact that everyone in san francisco has a voice. my one neighbor has had quite a voice over the last four years and in the process, they have maligned us and labeled us and prevented me from living in our home with my family. any further objections by the sturil is not discriminatory and obstructionalist. they simply do

not want us to move forward and enough is enough. my question is when does my voice get heard, what about my rights and i understand that people don't like change, but it's possible to change and make progress and still preserve history and that's what we're doing with this project. by installing the planning department and saying they didn't approve plans is shocking to me. commissioners, have you heard the appellant's argument and you have heard mine. don't listen to either one of those. listen to your planning department that is telling you to not take dr. they have reviewed the plans. you have the final plans before you dated july 2022. we have taken all the planning department guidance, we have followed all the codes, we have done everything appropriate and we've maintained the history of this property even with things that aren't historic in my view. so, listen to your own planning department. you charge them to do this job. don't listen to me. don't listen to the neighbor and thank you for your time. i have our design experts if you have

questions specific on the plans. thank you. >> okay. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. if you care to. if you're in the chambers, please come forward. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three to be added to the queue. seeing no members of the public requesting to speak, public comment is closed. and you each have two minute rebuttals. >> first of all, welcome commissioner braun. in october 2002, 20 years ago, i became a planning commissioner and commission president. had a member of the public provided the roof the wrong plans were before us, i would have continued the hearing until the packets could be corrected. the integrity of this commission

must never be compromised. dedication and commitment to upholding the public trust is the foundation of public service. project sponsors have been supporters have been bam boozeles and neighbors believe the ceiling heights will be reduced to ten feet. in truth, there's 12 foot ceiling and massive elevator penthouse and no reduction in the mass of the third floor despite what you just heard. staff required the changes, they signed off of them on july 7th but this commission approved plans from february 26th when those changes weren't even in existence. this project will destroy a cultural resource in north beach. a community with its own character, just like japan town, bay view, castro, fillmore and all. this is a flip project. you can show on the overhead, please. this is a flip project. the project, go ahead, please. >> sfgovt -- >> they were misleading in january of 2021 when they said

this was a financially home. they listed the property for sale in april of 2022, advertising it came with architectural plans. they had been through the planning -- that had been through the planning process and this project has mistakes and confusion and misinformation for the good of the north beach, the city, and the people of san francisco, please deny this project. we want a project that comes with public process fair, the documents are correct and the review is thorough. this project doesn't reach any of those standards. thank you. >> >> i don't know what to say to that except they continue to lie and malign me. my house is not for sale. i'm trying to move any family in it. i can't live in it with the size it is. i would

like our architect southern mara to please address the point about the elevator and the other item. >> hi, my name is shawn and i'm the architect and the plans clearly state everything that shelly is saying is not on there and the ceiling height, the light wells, the connections to everything, it's all clearly on the plans and i can go over item by item but we don't have time for that. >> do you have the pages to address each of those questions, so if you would like to go through the plans -- >> you'll need to speak into the microphone. >> i'm sorry. we have the pages of the plans you have before you ready to respond where all these are there. david, i welcome you to react to some of this. >> this is a total gross lie. thank you.

>> okay, commissioners, with that, this matter is before you. >> thank you. mr. winslow, i want to make sure that i think it's important for the public record to make sure that our records are accurate. i do see as the last file in my packet which was published online, a set of plans that i believe are dated in july of 2022, 7/10/22, they are the last section in the packet. are those the accurate plans that reflect the changes that you know in your staff report? >> yes. >> okay. excellent. and to that point, you know, for example, i see the ceiling height as roughly nine feet. obviously, the existing portion has a higher ceiling height, so i'm not sure if commissioners do have questions but it does seem to reflect most of those changes that were negotiated or a part of the rereview of the project. and so again, i want to make sure we're looking at the same page so those are the plans i

have available to me. are there any other questions, motions, discussions from the commissioners? commissioner koppel? >> i make a motion to not take the dr and approve as proposed. >> second. >> there's nothing further, commissioners, there's a motion that has been seconded to not take dr and approve the project as proposed. on that motion, commissioner braun? >> aye. >> commissioner ruiz. commission he diamond? >> aye. >> commissioner imperial. >> aye. >> commissioner koppel. [roll call. >> that passes 6-0 with commissioner moore voting against. >> that will place us on the consent calendar item that fell off, number 4, for case number 2022-001239, 1700 california

street. this is a conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon commissioners, chris, planning department staff. you have before you a request for conditional use per authorization to permit an a change of use on the third floor which is suite 370 of the subject property from a general office use to a health service use. and to legalize the change of use on the second floor which is suite 260 of the subject property from a general office use to a health service use. the project proposed interior improvements only and does not involve any alterations to the exterior of the building. the department staff believes the project will be desirable for the neighborhood and relevant as proval with conditions, i'll turn it over to the project sponsor and i'll be available afterwards for further questions, thank you. >> >> hello everyone. david from --

i'm here to address concern of the neighbor about the noise as chris said, we will not be making exterior modifications and our home is the corner the home and post. we haven't had a noise complaint including the construction period which was internal. our second floor, 1700 california street is a larger dialysis center and been in operation since 2014 and we we never had noise complaints during the development of the property or thereafter, so i will yield to the neighbor and see if she has any further concerns but we're relatively quiet. >> thank you. >> that concludes your presentation? >> i believe so. >> there are, there are some

points if you feel they are relevant, i can list them as far as hours of operations and things we plan to do but this is really just more like an outpatient clinic where you go to a physician and get a physical examine. there's training but no treatment on the facilities on the home side. that's it. >> okay. with that, we should open up public comment. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. if you're in the chambers, you need to come forward. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three. again, if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three to be added to the queue. seeing no members of the public requested to speak, public comment is closed. i'll notify you if that changes. >> thank you. commissioner imperial? >> i don't see any issues with

this project, so i move to approve. >> i'll second that. and i just want to apologize that someone called it off consent and was not here to provide any other testimony on behalf of what challenges were but through for staying here to talk about your project >> thank you for accommodating us. it's worth it. >> commissioners on that motion to approve with commissioners.... [roll call] so moved, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 6 to 0. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioners, we are adjourned. [gavel] [music]

>> all right, good morning, everyone. welcome to our citizenship month celebration, my name is rich, i'm the acting director of the office of civic affairs and immigrant affairs and we're excited to celebrate on this hot and beautiful day. just for today, we'll be celebrating many of the great resources available to san franciscans to support citizenship services. whether that includes immigration legal services, immigration fee assistance or esl and citizenship preparation classes so we're delighted to be joined by special guest and community member to celebrate this day and i'm going to hand it over to our mc for the day, the ceo for self help, lead agency for the pathway to citizenship initiative and a fax knowledge person and community leader, annie chung. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, richard, but our

phenomenal partners are all right here on the podium next to the podium. so, thank you very much, everyone for attending this, very very important day. we're celebrating national citizen shich month and we have a lot of our -- citizenship month and we have leaders to help us do the kickoff and make announcement of the important resources we have, on behalf of the san francisco initiative, i want to thank our elected officials from our city administrator and woun derful supervisors and each of them will make remarks to us and we also have a little recognize next right after this. it's hard richard so let's get the show on the road. all right. so, good morning, everyone. so again, to start off the national citizenship month, we're going to invite mayor's office chumaca

to make briefs. >> good morning, it's wonderful to be with you. my name is chumaca and i'm here on behalf of mayor breed who wasn't able to attend so she sent me. we recognize around 50,000 green card holders in san francisco are eligible to naturalize and the message from the mayor is simple, now is the time to become a citizen and the mayor, our board of supervisors and all of our community partners are here to support them in that journey to becoming a citizen. stint ship convey so many benefits and you can get a job and earn higher wages and allows you to vote and help shape the future of our city and our nation and it also ensures your right to remain in the united states and it can never be taken away from you and our green card holders form a social are and cultural fabric in the city and the major -- the mayor encourages you to become a further embedded part of that fabric. on behalf of the mayor, i would like to thank osia, our

immigrants right commission and the pathway to citizenship initiative and community partners for the work they do to support our green card holders and folks pursuing naturalization in the city. i like to issue a congratulations to the folks who have become naturalized citizenship. congrats again, that's bon derful. thanks to the folks who are actively pursuing and on the path to becoming citizens, without further or do, i'm excited to declare september citizenship month in the city and county of san francisco. thank you all. [cheers and applause] thank you again. >> what a wonderful honor, thank you, chuamac. i heard with this certificate we can park anywhere for a day, right. now, since the mayor announced this as a month

of citizenship, so does it mean that all of us new citizens and citizens, no parking tickets. all right. [laughter] if we get one, we'll bring them to supervisor peskin. >> that's right. >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. next will be our really, really honorable president of our board of supervisors, supervisor of the district ten, supervisor and president of the board, shamann walton. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, annie. good afternoon or good morning. it looks like the afternoon. first of all, i want to say it's always a privilege to share the same podium with annie chung who works so hard for our seniors in this city but also for our immigrant community and it is exciting to be here to celebrate all of the new citizens that we have here in san francisco and of course, across the country. since 2013, sf pathways provided

an opportunity to citizenship for over ten thousand residents here in san francisco across our communities and that's a milestone that we should celebrate. [cheers and applause] we know, you heard a little bit about the importance of becoming a citizen and what it does for wages, what it does to make sure that you have more family security, but i do want to put emphasis on the fact that it also gives you the right to vote here in san francisco and that is a major importance as we are coming up on election for november 8th, we have so many new voters, so many new people who can exercise their right and you all know that one of the most important rights we could have here in san francisco is that right to vote. so i'm excited to celebrate not only the citizenship new residents ask of course, new citizens -- and of course new citizens but the fact we have provided the opportunity for more people to have a vote, more people to have a say in their future, more

people to have a say in their representatives and more people to have a say in how they are governed and i think that's important as we live here in san francisco, so thank you so much for coming out and showing your support for all of our new citizens, making sure that we do everything we can to ensure everyone has the right to be protected here in san francisco. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> thank you so much, president walton. our inspection speaker, she's my -- our next speaker and she's my supervisor because i'm a resident of sunset. she was a supervisor of district four and she went on to be our accessory recorder and she's our city administrator, chu. >> hello, i'm happy to kickoff citizenship month. it's personal for me because my parent were immigrants year ago me dad worked in the kitchen and

my mom sold clothes in garment factors and despite that hard work they made time to go after work, to go to city college, to learn english so they become, they could become naturalized citizens. they knew how important it was to be able to establish security for our family here but more importantly, they also knew they needed to have a full set of rights when they were here as well. so, i really think being able to have such wonderful partnerships with people like annie chung i'm in with the immigrant rights commission and with rip ripple who is our -- rich ripple who is our acting director at oci and it's important, why? at that time when my parents had the least amount of resources, had the least amount of time, they had to pay legal fees, they had to figure out the ways to make it work and navigate a system that was hard, complex and not easy for someone who couldn't understand english. so being able to have a program like this in san francisco this pathway program where you're able to get

free legal advice, you're able to actually understand the process and work with people who have helped many, many and thousands of people before reached citizenship is a huge comfort and a wonderful bottom line impact for people who don't have as much resources as we would want and so again, i'm happy to be here and i want to thank all of the folks who are here today, all the board members who joined us and annie for our incredible service, thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, carmen. we would like to invite supervisor chung. of district one to make comments. thank you, connie. >> thank you. [foreign language] thank you. i want to congratulate everyone here for becoming citizens and i know it's hard work because i have been through that process but it's not just about hard work

but it's about studying english because if that's not your first language, you have to really study it but remember the history and remember so much more. i would say for some of you, you have been through a lot more than some of our kids, i think, through the public education and to actually earn your citizenship and like some of those who are born here and sometimes i think my own kid take it for granted the freedom and the rights that you have as american citizens. so again, congratulations. [applause] it is the reason i think we should celebrate it but i'm going to keep it short because it's hot out here and we see the seniors here but let's say to celebrate this month as a citizen month, but let's also think about, you know, just every month and everyday like all that san franciscans and the residents here working really hard towards making the city better, that they may not be

citizens in the united states. still, their contribution should be recognized and respected and they still work hard towards citizenship because they love our city, they love our state and love this country, so let's also make sure during their path to citizenship that we still provide them essentials in san francisco and create that safe space for them and i think this is what today is about. you see the people behind me, there's funding resource asks contributions -- and con and thanks to the city administrator and providing funding and providing a safe pathway for citizenship, so for that, thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, connie. next, we're going to invite supervisor gorman mar representing district four. >> thank you so much, annie and i'm also really excited to be here today with everyone to really celebrate national naturalization month here in san francisco and more importantly to celebrate the pathways to

citizenship initiative that is now ten years old in our city and played an important role in supporting and lifting up and empowering our immigrant communities here in the city. when i first moved to san francisco decades ago, fresh out of college and a community organizer in china town, we were working on grassroots efforts to support naturalization and voter registration in our community that was happening in the immigrant communities throughout our city but through the vision of mayor ed lee and also community leaders like annie chung and other city leaders, we created the model for naturalization and immigrant community empowerment in the country here through the pathway through citizenship initiative and the immigrants rights commission i would say as well. we should be proud of the work we have done here to support immigrants, to naturalize, to register to vote and become active politically and civically in our city and let's keep it

up. there's so much work to do to support our immigrants because our immigrant communities make san francisco what we are, right. there's the diversity, the beautiful diverse of our city. they are our small business owners and service workers and tech workers and our cultural, and add so much cultural to our city. let's keep uplifting our immigrant community and congratulations everyone. and of course to our new citizens and introduce, my colleague district three, supervisor aaron peskin. [applause] >> thank you, annie, thank you to my colleagues. almost everything has been said but not everyone has said it, so i will say this, my mother did it 58 years ago and be like my mother who has never missed an election since she become a citizen. thank you and congratulations. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, aaron. and

supervisor representing district 7, supervisor myrna melgar. >> thank you, annie. congratulations, everyone. [foreign language] i'm myrna melgar and i was born and raised in central america in el salvador and in 1996 i became a u.s. citizen and in 2020 i was elected to the board of supervisor for san francisco, a city that gave my family, my sisters, my parents so much opportunity to thrive, to be educated, to build our families and now to represent district 7 on the board of supervisors which will be you some day or your children. i want to say how happy i am to be a part of this event and how grateful i am for the work of osia and to carmen chiu in they're and annie chung and all the people who have

worked so hard to integrate immigrants and to make sure that, you know, the fabric of our democracy is strengthened by your experiences because you have lived, we have all lived through this world in a different path. we know what it's like to come to this country, to learn a language, to work hard, to put our kids through school and to be a part of the country, to be grateful for what we have been given and to contribute. i have voted in every single election since becoming a citizen and i know you will too. and thank you, everybody, for the support. i know we in san francisco will keep growing, the system we have to support immigrants to create that pathway and to make sure that they are integrated and they vote, thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much, myrna and all supervisors today made special arrangement to attend this celebration with us. thank

to them. they have to get back to their committee meetings so if you don't mind, syleena, hold your item and i would like to invite our partners of the sf pathway to citizenship to present something to celebrate, not just national citizenship month but the (indiscernible) festival which is this saturday. [applause] so with compliment from our family association, the landlord and they have generously contributed some beautiful moon cakes for each one of our esteemed guest today, so i ask our partners at the same time introduce them to you, so representing the api legal outreach, wong. so would you present the moon cake and then representing the international institute of the bay area. i'm sorry, i couldn't hear.

representing our jewish family and june services, we have brett snyder or supervisor chang and representing the immigration advocacies, we have amy or claire. are they -- okay. [applause] sorry. please present our moon cakes to supervisor peskin. it's a mini moon cake so don't worry about the calories, okay. [laughter] so, representing -- all right. so, representing the larasa community resource center, we have gabriel or shawn or wendy. i don't know if they are here. if not, then we have carlos representing the labor council, we rise immigration center, so supervisor gordon mar. [applause] thank you. and if --

representing the elderly would give one to shamaka from the mayor's office. and then i think shamann went back to the chamber so we'll bring his box. let's give a big hand to the supervisor's office and mayor's office. [cheers and applause] and then we'll go back to our agenda. it's very hot today.

[taking pictures] >> thank you! [indistinct chatter]

>> all right. sorry for the interruption but we now, i would like to invite the chair of our immigrant rights commission, ms. celine canelli to say a few words and i have to tell celine, she's very, very supportive of the sf pathway really from the day one since we conceived the idea and supported it with fund and the oc office and all of the community ambassadors, for every one of our workshop, so thank you celine. let's give a warm welcome to celine. [cheers and applause] >> good morning, everyone. i think we're -- are we still in the morning? just about. i'm delighted to be here this morning. i'm a naturalized

immigrant and i remember going on the path but the excitement as you go on that path, the day i was eligible to apply, the day i got the notification, my application had been accepted and the interview, it's a process. it's a long road and but it's so worth it when you get to the end of it, so i very much encourage the 50,000 lpr who are eligible to apply to please get on the path. so, on behalf of the immigrant rights commission, we are proud to be here today to celebrate the more than ten thousand san franciscans who have naturalized through sf pathways. sf pathways really, really emphasizes the importance that the city puts on our immigrant community and look at the display of support we had from the mayor's office, from our city assessor and all our supervisors this morning. so, the new citizens who are here with us today, and those who have been through sf pathways were able to get help with their applications for free. they

attended free workshops and got help from pro bono attorneys and these attorneys give their time, month after month, year after year to make sure that our immigrants get to naturalized and many applied for fee waivers if they couldn't afford the fee and sf pathways saved applicants $1.5 million in application fees. for those who don't qualify for a fee waiver, san francisco in its usual creative way launched a program to help cover the cost. ocf and the nonprofit mission fund provide a 50 percent match to help people apply for citizenship, so half of the cost is covered by a grant. the collaborative have done something unique in san francisco. it has made citizenship accessible to all eligible green card holders regardless of income and the immigrants rights commission and i see my vice-chair mario has been able to join us today. we

have supported the work of sf pathways from the beginning and we're proud to be here today to celebrate its continued success. so, a huge thank you to sf pathways and all partners, to ocf, director rupa and mission (indiscernible) fund and the partners and volunteers. if you haven't had an opportunity to volunteer, please do so. you'll see it on social media and sign up and it's a rewarding feeling so congratulations to you all and congratulations to sf pathways. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, celine so much. if the weather is more cooperative, we would have asked celine to send us her beautiful song, right but today we're going to let her voice rest. nancy, on behalf of the sf pathway present our many moon cakes to celebrate the mid autumn festival to our wonder of, wonderful celine, thank you, celine and the

immigrants commission. for the next program, we prepared threw new citizens that used our pathway services to become u.s. citizens, so we like them to share a very short, you know, their experience and why they want to become a citizen now. so, first speaker would be ms. tang. she will speak in chinese very short and then jen, our director of our program will do the translation for her. ms. tang. [foreign language] [applause] >> hello, everyone. [foreign language] >> interpreter: i'll do the translation. so, hello everyone. my name is pang tang and i'm 72 years old. i came to the united

states in 2012 from china. are -- i become a u.s. citizen in 2022. [applause] i'm delighted to be here to share with you my pride and joy in becoming an american citizen. >> [foreign language] >> interpreter: for the first few years in the united states, i couldn't imagine myself passing the test to become a u.s. citizen because i didn't know english. later through the

naturalization class of ms. tang which was run by self-help for the elderly, i'm english blind person who didn't know abc and i mastered the basic knowledge for the naturalization test. last year, i got a service of filling out the naturalization form and the fee waiver form for free at the san francisco pathway to citizenship initiative workshop in san francisco and successfully passed the test in march this year to become a u.s. citizen.

[applause] [foreign language] >> interpreter: i would like to express my heartfelt thanks to self-help for the elderly and s fpc i for free citizenship workshop. thank you to the city government for funding to provide a one-stop free service for all our immigrants to become a u.s. citizen. [applause] [speaking foreign language] >> interpreter: we cannot achieve our american dream without your full help. i would

lift up to your expectation and be a good citizen. i'm registered to vote. [audience cheering] after naturalizations, i'll continue to study and encourage other students in our self-help citizenship class. if needed in the future, i will try to volunteer at the san francisco free citizenship workshop. thank

you everyone! [cheers and applause] >> our citizenship class now has over 400 students. finally on behalf of all my classmates, we like to express my gratitude to you all. thank you everyone. >> so richard and celine, i would like to bring our really wonderful instructor lynn tang, can you come up and can brett and justin help us present two souvenirs ever moon cakes, one to lynn and ms. tarng. let's is a wonderful leadership instructor and that's we have over 400 students and she's creative in advising and encouraging people like ms. tang, our speaker, even though they didn't speak one of english, not even the alphabets

when they first started and then through lynn's hard work, she become u.s. citizen, so congratulations to both of you. so, thank you lynn and thank you, ms. tang. >> thank you. all right, our next speaker is marcella alvarez will share her experience with us as a new citizen. [applause] >> thank you, my neal is marcella and i'm here today with extremely gratitude and i wanted to express to the san francisco pathways to citizenship. as i consider myself a product of the work that they do. i always dream on becoming a citizen, growing up in san francisco as a latina, as an immigrant, and being so a flayed of express my political opinion was always a challenge and i knew once i become a citizen, i was going to be able to choose who i want to

represent me, who you know, who take a lead on -- speak for my family or for those who don't have the right to do it, so go years ago i -- so two years ago i became a citizen and it was nice to check my register voting and take part of, you know, this city and everything that this city give us. i'm a mother of three kids and the future of this city is, like, what's most important for me and i think that if we -- if we exercise our right to vote and we do our part, this is going to be, you know, better in the coming years, so i encourage you all who are residents to please take, take the time to become ape citizen and to never be afraid again to speak for yourself and to travel, to

travel without fear and visit your loved ones abroad. my name is marcella. [speaking foreign language]

[cheers and applause] >> we all love marcella. marcella used to work for one of our partners and then osia hired marcella to now work for the city and at the workshop, i will be talking to marcella because she's always there and her three children are just the most beautiful children. when she showed me the baby pictures and marcella, thank you, can you come back out so carlos can help us present your moon cake to you and your family. thank you, marcella. next, we're going to ask join that to speak for the

togala. >> i'm originally came from the philippines and i'm so, so happy, it is -- it is my first time to talk to all of you and wow. i got my citizenship. [cheers and applause] it was a long journey. i could say. i come here as an immigrant 2009 but i dream some day i will be a citizen and here it is. [cheers and applause] thank you very much for attorney carlos boras for helping me to achieve my dream. and to all of you, keep dreaming. it's not

impossible to dream big. like my, i'm an ordinary filipino in our country but i dream i will be here in the united states and i will serve all the people that needs my help, so on behalf of filipino community, chinese community, and all the races that is present here, i'd like to thank all of you for this special event and hope i could see you next year for another citizenship event. thank you so much. have a nice day. and thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, join that. the chinese saying, when they become u.s. citizen, it becomes [foreign language, you become a beauty so today you're really beautiful. so thank you so much for your remarks.

>> thank you. [applause] >> thank you. so, next, we're going to recognize some of the really important partners of sf pathway. we couldn't do our job without them. so, first, i would like to ask richard to come back up and representing the thunder that san francisco pathway (indiscernible) in 2013. never giving up on us for extending our contract year after year, for finding us a new money when we need additional resources, so can all the pathway partners come up to make this presentation and recognition. and richard, if you don't mind, aid like to ask some of your staff, team members to come up to join you because we really couldn't have done all our work without them, so alyana, melissa, jaime. >> yes, especially the folks who helped put together today's event, come on up. come on up,

team osia. thank you. >> we know that one box of moon cakes will not be enough. and later, i have -- okay. mario, could you come up please, mario. so we're going to present you six boxes of moon cakes and more if you have left. [laughter] so everyone will get a moon cake. mario, i'm going to introduce you, yeah. staff, can you bring up six boxes. >> oh, my goodness. >> and the partners please represent -- can we all say thank you to osia. one, two, three. thank you, osia. >> thank you! [laughter] >> thank you, melissa. >> thank you. >> all right. our second recognition goes to the immigrant rights commission. so, celine and mario representing the chair and the vice-chair. so, mario, want to say a few words. >> thank you, annie. i want to congratulate our new citizens,

i'm so excited that you will be able to fully participate in our democracy so thank you for your hard work and thank you to pathway to citizenship and annie chung, you're an amazing leader, thank you everyone. thank you. >> mario new me when i was in the philanthropy world and he kept sending money we needed. thank you, mario. we thank the rios and the new campaign, i want to introduce lucia to say a few words. >> thank you so much and thank you for the recognition but none of this would not be possible without the partners and those who collaborated in san francisco. i lead a collaborative of two hundred partners across the country and san francisco has been an example of collaboration and work can be done. there's over 9 million people in the united states that can naturalize and you're an example that can be

replicated across the country and we have helped over half a billion people neutralize and save $600 million in the united states for people like you to become u.s. citizens, congratulations and thank you for being an example to all of us. [applause] >> thank you, lucia. please, thank eric for us because he's the one that got it all started. next, we have (indiscernible) representing mission sf fund. doris, are you here? doris, please come up. as you heard from our supervisors, the application fee is very expensive. so, for those that could not afford it, we come, here comes our partner sf fund and doris will let you know how much they helped us. >> thank you. i know, i am. [applause] hey, good morning, everyone. congratulations new citizens. you did it. mission fund is a nonprofit organization in the city of san francisco and we're assisting with a 50% grant

thanks to lucia for funding citizenship applications, green card loans, daca tps and visa. this is an important milestone for every individual and we encourage people to become citizens because everyone has the right to vote, everybody has the right to be heard and this is what we need within our community, so thank you very much again for becoming citizens and let's keep passing on the voice about how important it is to be a citizen and the resources that the city of san francisco serves. thank you. [applause] >> doris, thank you. so, we have other partners who are not here today but we want to mention them and thank them. one very, very important city partner is hsa, human service agency

because before every workshop they have sent out thousands of package like invocation letter and documents that the green card holders need to bring in order to get their citizenship papers fulfilled so we want to thank john murray and trent ross of the hsa and we save them a box of moon cakes whether we see him. next is also the san francisco public library right across from the plaza. and unfortunately, they are not here today, so we also want to thank katherine apla and also michael kayla. the other partner is sfo and sometimes we will go to sfo to do these citizenship workshops and we hope that carlos maybe, we assume that very soon. okay. so, that's about complete our program and for closing remarks, i would like to ask richard to say a few words, richard.

[applause] >> let's give a hand to annie chung for all this -- the great work she leads, thank you annie, a remarkable leader and it's hot so to keep it brief, a reminder, there refree resources for citizenship services in san francisco. that's the take away today whether it's immigration services at workshops or application fee, the -- these services exist for those in san francisco. we have a workshop in celebration of citizen month. we have a workshop september 24th. it's the osha campus. visit our website for information. it's an appoint base workshop so you need to make an appointment and my fantastic colleagues will pass out flyers and september 24th, a free citizenship workshop and come through. all resources available. a huge thanks to my colleagues at the immigrant a faurs for plan and putting on today's event and supporting our partners with the sf path to

initiative citizenship. have a wonderful day and happy citizens month, everyone. >> thank you, richard and thank to all media and press friends, to come here and do this report under such extreme weather. we really appreciate you covering this news to us and thank you to all new citizens, going to be citizens and definitely please vote on november 6th. all right. so thank you to all our staff, from our partners and self-help and thank you to all volunteers and thanks to the city hall crew who helped put up this podium and pa system for us, so maybe we can take one last picture and call it a day. it's too hot. thanks, everyone.

>> welcome to wednesday fight october 12, 2022 police commission meeting. we have a full line up today, so sergeant why don't you go ahead and get started with the pledge of allegiance. >> if you can stand if you are able for the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> president elias, if i may take roll. [roll call]