okay. good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco planning commission hearing for thursday, september 14th, 2023. to enable public participation, sf govtv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live and we will receive we will receive public comment for discussion and action items on today's agenda. each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes and when you have 30s remaining, you will hear a chime indicating your time is almost up. when your allotted time is reached, i will announce that your time is up and take the next person cue to speak. we will take public comment from persons in city hall first and then open up the remote access lines for those persons calling in remotely to

submit their testimony. you need to call area. code (415)!a655-0001 and enter access code. 26640246699. and press pound twice. at this point, you should be able to hear the hearing and id you need to wait for the item you're interested in speaking to and for public comment to be announced. to comment, you must enter star three to raise your hand. once you've raised your hand, you will hear a prompt stating that you have raised your hand to ask a question. please wait to speak until the host calls on you. when you hear that you are unmuted, that is your indication to begin speaking for those joining via webex, please log in via the link found on today's agenda and enter password cpc 2023. you will need to use the raised hand icon to ask a question when you hear a beep and see a prompt that the host has unmuted you. that is your indication to begin speaking.

best practices are to call from a quiet location and please mute the volume on your television or computer. for those persons. in city hall, i will ask that you line up on the screen side of the room or to your right. please speak clearly and slowly. and if you care to state your name for the record. finally i'll ask that we silence any mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. at this time, i would like to take roll commission. president tanner here. commission vice president moore. commissioner braun here. commissioner dimond here. commissioner imperial here. commissioner koppell here , and commissioner ruiz here. thank you, commissioners. first on your agenda is consideration of items proposed for continuance. item one, case number 2022 hyphen 00697608 1541 polk street a conditional use authorization is proposed for continuance to november ninth, 2023. items two a and b for case

numbers 2022 hyphen 005728 drp and var for a discretionary review and variance are proposed for continuance to december 7th, 2023. item three case number 2023 hyphen 000711c at 1060 howard street a conditional use authorization is proposed for continuance to december 14th, 2023. further commissioners under your consent calendar. item eight case number 2020 hyphen 007806 ca for 1314 page street a conditional use authorization is proposed for continuance to november 16th, 2023, and this is a request coming from staff and the project sponsor is aware. uh, commissioners, there are no other items proposed for continuance, so we should take public comment. members of the public. this is your opportunity to address the commission on the items proposed for continuance only on the matter of continue once. commissioners. thank you.

i'm speaking on item number one 1541 polk on the matter of continuance back in june, you heard the item. members of the community brought concerns about formula retail. and i'd like to thank the commission for continuing this item. your staff i'd like to thank miss feeney picked up on your continuance and did the diligence and determined that it was formula retail. and since then i'd like to bring to your awareness the space is now available for lease. so my guess is that they gave it up and did not want to pursue it. and so i just wanted to just really reiterate that the process worked. you did your you did you know, you listened to the community. staff did their diligence. and, you know, whether it gets continued in november and they either drop it or there's a, you know, drawn up motion for denial or whatnot, it i just wanted to take this one

minute to point out the process worked and i appreciate everything. thank you. thank you . good afternoon, commissioners . justin zucker from ruben, jason rose on behalf of the sponsor for 1314. we just wanted to express our support for the continuance requested by staff for november 16th. thank you. thank you. last call for public comment on the items proposed. to be continued. so seeing no additional requests for public comment, public comment is closed and the continuance calendar is now before you commissioners commission move to continue items one and two a and b second. did you want to add item eight? what about eight and eight? i'm sorry, did you getting eight, which is on consent? yes. and what about item three? sorry. i'm sorry.

one, two, eight to be three. and item eight. i'll second that motion. thank you, commissioners. on that motion then to continue items as proposed. commissioner braun, i, commissioner ruiz, i. commissioner diamond i commissioner imperial high commissioner coppell. hey, do do we continue the variance or does we do not? i'll ask the zoning administrator or the acting zoning administrator to continue. other than that, yes, i. commissioner moore and commission president tanner i so move commissioners that motion passes unanimously. 7 to 0 is the zoning administrator or someone in their stead? yeah, i'll do acting. join us and continue that item. thank you. acting zoning administrator. with that, we can move on to your consent calendar. commissioners, all matters listed here under constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the 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 for case number 2023 hyphen 005278 at 32 24.5 second 22nd street conditional use authorization in item five. case number 2022 hyphen 00390885 51 gottingen street a conditional use authorized in item six case number 2022 hyphen 008871q at 2089 ingles street, suite four conditional use authorization item seven case number 2022 hyphen 006127 drm for the property at 2100 through 20 102 jones street and 998 filbert street, a mandatory discretionary review as already previously stated, item eight has been continue food members of the public. this is your opportunity to request that any of these consent calendar items be removed, as is your opportunity. commissioners see

no members of the public coming forward or raising their hand. public comment on the consent calendar is closed and it is now before you commissioners. commissioner moore, did you want to speak? no, i didn't take it off. commissioner brown moved to approve items four, five, six and seven. second. thank you, commissioners, on that motion to approve items on consent. commissioner braun. i. commissioner ruiz, i. commissioner diamond i commissioner imperial i. commissioner coppell i. commissioner moore and commissioner president tanner i so move commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0 and we'll place this under commission matters. item nine land acknowledgment. thank you a moment. the planning commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula, as the indigenous stewards of this land

and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank you. thank you. item ten commission comments and questions is great. well, i want to just do one kind of announcement and then one question to the commission. i was able to attend on monday a retreat with the senior managers of the department face on racial and social equity and really kind of kicking into another gear that really is not just going to be our department, but really a citywide effort from the office of racial equity, really helping all departments continue to deepen their work on racial and social equity. and as part of that, they're going to be offering a series of six

different really hands on practical trainings geared towards managers on how to supervise, how to create a positive environment, work some really, really key things, some of which you may be interested to attend. certainly there's two topics. one is building an anti-racist organization, and of course, i'm forgetting the other one. but you'll be invited to be able to attend all of them. their virtual online trainings. i think they're intended to be about 2.5 hours each, rolling out over the next eight months, somewhat sequentially. so i think it will be great for us to kind of understand some of the things that the staff are learning and how to build a more equitable organization. and then some of it will apply maybe to us as commissioners, some of it certainly not land use specific. it's again geared towards the entire city. but do encourage you when you see those opportunities to do to sign up and then we'll make sure that there's no more than three of us in any one training so we can avoid any brown act violations and the trainings will be offered multiple times so there won't be just one session for each of them. so something to look forward to this year and i believe in the spring as well. and then one of the things we talked about before recess a

little bit was about the start time for the hearing. so this hearing used to start at noon and it was moved to start at 1:00. so that commissioners could have lunch beforehand instead of having a lunch break during the hearing or breaking later on. certainly, if we were going to have a break scheduled later on, i think it makes sense to continue 1:00 as our start time. but if folks do want to get out earlier, particularly as we are heading into the time of year where the sun will be setting sooner and it'll be dark when we get out of here at like 4:00, we might consider starting at noon. so just wanted to put that on the open that that for the comments. if you prefer to continue as is or if you prefer noon or if you're agnostic and have no strong inclination either way. commissioner moore i was the only one who was probably gone through both forms of meeting and in the end it doesn't matter. you still spend your time here, but given that the winters are dark, i personally prefer the noon time and i can be responsible eating lunch before i get here. this would be my comments. thank you,

commissioner moore. commissioner brown. i'm neutral on whether we start at noon or one, so either one is fine with me. okay commissioner. burial same here, same here. i'm also neutral. we can either start at 12 or on one, but if we're starting at 12, i think we proper notification. of course, the public should be given as well. so. but i'm neutral to any. yeah, certainly we would probably not be able to start it for about 20 days to a month. so it wouldn't be our next coming meetings. it would be i guess in october or something thereabouts that we might start out 30 days because our our notices state we start at 1:00. so okay, so some time for staff to adjust that. commissioner dimond, i too am neutral, but i will say when we have very long agendas, i really appreciated earlier in the year when we started at noon. so even if we decide on one, i'm hopeful that if we have very long agendas and we know enough in advance, we could notify notice it for noon. but i'm happy to

have all of them started noon, if that's what anybody's preference is. commissioner koppell yeah, i'm either way would work for me, but also wanted to just pose the question do we have like a maybe a little forecast as to how packed the agendas may or may not be in the next? i mean, surprisingly, i'm looking at your advanced calendars commissioners. i mean, october and november are both very full at the moment. so you can expect considerably longer hearings than we have been experienced. yeah, so that might be one reason to at least maybe even for this last quarter of the year to switch if obviously it's not working or some reason is not functioning well, we can switch back and also will give staff a chance to get out a little earlier, too, if we know we're going to be having some longer hearings. i mean, again, it's one hour. i don't know that it'll make a huge difference. but for commuting, if for those who are commuting, it can make a significant difference. yeah. and if it makes you feel any better, commissioners going from back from noon to one is a

non-issue because the indication of start time is just that we can't start before the designated time. so if we start at 1:00 and the notice says noon , that's fine. great. commissioner koppell and then just so you all know that commissioner and i, commissioner moore and i were here for we would normally take almost like a dinner break. we would all literally leave the building and literally go out to eat somewhere and then walk back. so it's not like a take a break here. it's like actual break and vacate. it was a real 30 minute to an hour break depending upon the agenda. okay, commissioner reece, i would be happy to start at noon. okay hearing everybody be very amenable, but no strong votes. but thank you, commissioner reece, for saying happy to start at noon. i think we'll go with that and look forward to maybe starting at noon in the next month or so. okay, great. very good. commissioners any other commissioner comments or questions? commissioner reece,

did you have any other further comments or questions? commissioner moore i'm obviously saying the obvious. it was a sigh of relief reading the papers that the sales force convention is coming off to a good start and the city is looking good. i know we always do. but i think over coming bad press and really showing what we can do is definitely a sigh of relief on my side. yeah thank you for that. i don't see any other commissioner hands. thank you. very good. if there's nothing further commissioners department matters. item 11 directors announcements. good afternoon, commissioners. just two things. one, the. the mayor and supervisor peskin had an event this morning where the mayor signed two pieces of housing legislation that you have seen. one is the temporary reduction in the inclusionary housing rate and then the accompanying fee reduction in it happened at 395 third street, which is a project you heard a couple of weeks ago. that is moving faster because of this

reduction. there was a there were the press release highlighted a couple other projects, 770 woolsey, which is in the portola, which is got a boost in is moving faster as a result of the legislation. an 988 market which is a conversion from office to residential that you actually won't hear because the downtown legislation that passed no longer requires that to come to the commission. so some good news and good news that projects are taking advantage of it and moving, moving forward. they also announced, i think yesterday or the day before introduction of a $300 million housing bond to the board of supervisors. so all very much aligned with the housing element in in what you passed and adopted as our housing element. so goodness, i also wanted to highlight, i don't think are you talking about 2005 50 irving at the board of appeals just if aaron's not going to report 2550 irving was at the board of appeals last night for a rehearing request

that i was there. i think it was the fourth time this project has been heard. it's presumably an sb 35 ministerial project, but it's hard to kind of guess that by how many times it's actually been before the board of appeals. but the board of appeals rejected the rehearing request, and the project is going to move forward. so good news on that. that's all i have . great. thank you for some good news and i guess some good news. but bad news that i had to take so long to get not heard again. so thank you for being there. do you have a comment? no, i'm done. okay. very good. if there's nothing for the director, we can move on to item 12 review of past events at the board of supervisors. you just heard the report from the board of appeals and the historic preservation commission did not meet yesterday. good afternoon, commissioners. aaron starr, manager of legislative affairs. this week the land use committee heard the irish cultural center , but because of some questions regarding the coastal zone

permitting, the item was continued until october 30th. also on the agenda was the duplicate ordinance for the inclusionary fee as director hillis just reported, that ordinance, the original ordinance was passed and signed and will soon be effective. this week the duplicated ordinance was amended by supervisor safai to include inclusionary rate reductions for projects with 10 to 24 units that are currently in the pipeline. while supervisor lloyd austin originally voted against the original file, he did vote in favor of the proposed amendments. could move forward to the full board. the other two committee members also voted to include the amendments because they were substantive. item was continued for one week on the agenda was a resolution extending the interim controls that require conditional use authorization for all parcel delivery service uses this item has not come to this commission because it is an interim control. the current controls have been in place for a year and the resolution under consideration by the land use

committee would extend the controls for another six months. this also because of i'm sorry, my report has disappeared. that's very strange. all right. well um, during public comment, resident representatives from the labor organization spoke in favor of the extension, but asked that the 10,000 square foot threshold be reduced to 10,000 5000ft!s. staff made the square foot reduction or the square foot threshold recommendation to the sponsor of the legislation because it kept capturing cannabis delivery services which are included under the parcel delivery definition. so in an effort to not target those which the interim controls were not intended to do, they put in a square footage threshold and the comment from the unions was that 10,000 was too much. so they did

lower it to 5000ft. and we do believe that that will catch most of the cannabis delivery services. so they won't be caught up in that. and then with that, the land use committee took the recommendation and forward it to the full board with a positive recommendation. and lastly, the committee considered supervisor peskin's ordinance that would set a minimum density requirements in c and rta districts. at the hearing, supervisor peskin, who said he was not ready to move forward with the ordinance requested the item be continued. the committee then voted to continue the item to the call of the chair and then finally at the board this week, the supervisors considered the appeal for 939 lombard street, the proposed project would demolish a parking structure at the front of the lot and construct a new 40 foot tall for story single family residence. in its place immediately east of the project is the yiwu elementary school. the planning commission heard this item on

june 29th of this year as a and voted to not take and approve the project. the plan argued that the project would have impacts related to geology and soils, shadow hazardous materials, esthetics, air quality, noise, public safety and biological resources. that's quite the single family home to have all those impacts during public comment at this week's hearing, there were eight speakers for the appeal and one speaker against the appeal. the speakers for the appeal argued that the project would have an adverse effect on the adjacent elementary school. all the issues raised during public comment were already addressed in the department's appeal response. during the hearing, supervisor engardio pointed out that the appellants property, which is immediately west of the project, is of similar size to the proposed building supervisor . peskin stated that he concurred with the department's determination and that the project qualified for a category exemption. in the end, the board had the board voted unanimously to deny the appeal and allowed the project to move forward. and that's all that happened this

week at the board. and i'm happy to take any questions. i just want to clarify that the cannabis delivery services will not be impeded by the interim controls. right? okay. that whole section of my report just disappeared. but yeah, the threshold was intended to not catch the cannabis delivery services. and we believe of the ten that are in the hopper now, nine are under 5000ft!s. and its the one that's over 5000. probably the parcel delivery service is less than 5000. so it may be able to get out of that as well. and just curious if the legislation i know sometimes we have gotten a few instances where we're asked to approve like improvements to parking lots that may or may not be related to the parcel delivery service, but the use itself is a parking lot or that's what the project is. you know, this will address any of that. this does not address that supervisor chan's ordinance that amends the definition of parcel delivery, which was continued, i believe, last week. and for an indefinite continuance. they're still working on some language. is

attempting to address that. and there are several different ways we're trying to get at that. but that's to be determined. okay, great. thank you. director hillis, did you want to add something? i just wanted to give i forgot to give a shout out to kate connor and carly grob, who were instrumental in developing and getting the housing legislation passed. so i just wanted to recognize them as well as ann topia from ewg, who did a tremendous job. thank you. right, thanks, commissioners. the historic preservation commission did not meet yesterday, but i just got some late breaking news that the mayor has nominated. amy campbell, an architect with gensler gensler, to replace kate black on the historic preservation commission, um, with that, 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. i accept 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. good afternoon. george schultz. i sent you an email on september 9th and i think that if you read it and looked at the pictures, it shows us why the flat policy should be codified to preserve flats in their original configuration with route without relocating the flat. i think codifying will strengthen the intent of planning commission resolution 2000 excuse me, 20024. it's a typology of housing, which that resolution says is for middle income families. the timeline of the project i don't know if you got that from the email, but it's been unoccupied since it sold in 20 1518, and it remains unfinished today. it's eight

years since it's sold and actually i went into it when it was on the market in 2015 and it was fine. it was sound and that soundness issue never came up and it could have had a very simple remodel and returned to the market. the original spec proposal wanted to create a mega mansion by moving one flat behind the garage, and that was pretty standard. you saw that pretty standard in those years happened on many streets, not only in noe valley, but throughout the city under section 317 b seven. so adr was filed in 2017 and that was one of the few, if not the only doctors that were filed for those type of projects where creating a mega mansion and at the doctor hearing, the public suggested the flats be maintained in their original configuration with an adu added behind the garage using the original tradesman's entrance and keeping the art deco facade , which had an ability to go into the rear of the garage. but the commission wanted revision, which they got, but it created a

very large one bedroom unit which has happened that those type of units become party rooms that get a fridge, a wine fridge in there and a and a wet bar and they get their cfc and i'll talk about that more in september 28th because that could still be going on. so what happens is later the wall comes down and it's illegal merger and it's a mega mansion. best to keep the flats in their original configuration, incentivizing an adu to use the entire garage by keeping the curb cut, allowing the street parking for one car as it turned out, the enforcement was needed because it exceeded the demo counts, because it wasn't extreme alteration. and you had a car in 2019, the ca approved two stat flats, adding the adu. so it could have happened back in 2016, 2017. so here they are. it's still unoccupied and so codifying the flat policy will preserve and create housing and forestall evictions potentially.

and simple remodels. and you have market rate housing for middle income families, which is something i think that's in the housing element. so here are my 150 words for the minutes. and here for your information, are the demo calcs. both the before , before and the after. so with the drt and with the q and you can compare those, i'll be done . thank you. have a good day and have a nice picnic. cars you have more cards. more cards. speaker cards. we don't do speaker cards anymore. all right, well then i will start talking one person at a time. we just line up. okay it's been a while. it's lovely to see you all again, tom radulovich with livable city wants to actually talk a little bit about retail. i've had i think it was a good discussion. i think on the ordinance last week had a little bit more thinking that i've done

about it and kind of wanted to share some of those thoughts with you and see what you thought about these things. one is like, are we desperate? you know, should we be desperate to fill storefronts or should we be choosy? you know, should we not lower our standards? and i would say the latter. i don't think this is a point where we should lower our standards in terms of what we want for storefront retail rents are still incredibly high in san francisco. i don't know if you noticed this, but there are both vacant storefronts and incredibly high rents and i think that's a factor of speculation that for a lot of people keeping a property vacant and even letting it run down is still makes you still make double digit investment because it's the value of the land. it's not the value of the storefront. so we need to adjust our policies accordingly and really understand what an intense speculative environment that we are in that kind of normal econ 101 notion of rents and all of that, like cousin, that doesn't apply here, right? it's really about the land and what can we do, though, to decrease those vacancies? i wanted to tell a story about fillmore center and

you probably all remember this, but they built all that fillmore center apartments. they had all those storefronts, but they let kaiser move offices in and they got a whole city block on fillmore street. and it just really deadened that block for years, decades. you know, they put their thrive posters up and it's completely blank. nothing going on on that entire block. so don't make that mistake again. and i'm glad you didn't. i think you recommended the right thing. but we shouldn't be putting office uses in these inactive uses on the ground floor. so let's be smart about this. let's put retail in the context of walkable community. his we don't have a land use element which is both stupid and contrary to the law, but when you get around to writing it, walkable communities are 15 minute neighborhoods should be the centerpiece. so the way that we think about retail should be, you know, all of the things that we need in daily life should be in walking distance from everybody's home. so you can start doing that now in policy before you do the land use element. but let's please contextualize this. don't fall

for the over retail or have too much retail. again, let's think about where retail should be. you know, there's you should we should still be building high quality stores front retail spaces in walkable neighborhoods, in commercial districts. that's a value. some of the automobile oriented retail. we should encourage its conversion to housing or mixed use communities. so it's not about how much retail we have. it's about where how that's oriented to walkability, how that's oriented to 15 minute neighborhoods. so hopefully we will have a public conversation about the future of retail. but in the meantime, yeah, just don't don't pretend like we're desperate. we're not we're not there yet. thank you. okay. last call for general public comment again. if you're in the chambers, you need to come forward. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three in order to be recognized or raise your hand via webex. seeing no request to speak. commissioners general public

comment is closed and we can move on to your regular calendar for item 13. case number 2010 .03 05ac wp for the sunnydale hope sf development this is a request to amend the design standards and guidelines. thank you. before we begin, commissioner dimond has a disclosure. i wanted to let everyone know that from 2014 to 2017, i was a board member of mercy housing california and on their real estate committee. during that time period, we spent a lot of time on the sunnydale project and in fact, it was in front of this commission, i believe, during that time period. however, i have not been on the mercy board since the end of 2017. that's almost six years ago. and i believe i can look at the proposal in front of us today impartially. i should also

disclose that my husband and i are donors to the community center that's within sunnydale. but in discussions with staff and my review of the materials, it doesn't appear that the amendments today affect the community center. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. i'm matt snyder of department staff. i'm joined by kimberly duran, my colleague. and together we are presenting to you amendments to the sunnydale hope sf design standards and guidelines document or also referred to as the dsg. as you. just as a reminder for the sunnydale hope sf project was approved in 2017 through a development agreement between the city and mercy housing and related california. together, the project sponsors and then with the san francisco housing authority through a separate document. the proposal is to completely rebuild the existing 50 acre site. introducing a

market rate housing completely new street grid, new parks and green space space network that would be better integrated with its visitation valley neighborhood to give some to provide more specifics. what would what this change would mean was going from 775 public housing units. to between 900 and 60 9 to 1006. affordable rental units, including those for existing sunnydale velasco households to exercise right of return, along with new units. it would also include the addition of up to 694 market rate units, which are currently not on the site in terms of community facilities, we would go from 29,000ft!s. it concludes sfr, leasing office health and wellness center, an after school programs to a more robust 660 zero zero zero square foot

neighborhood amenities which would include retail to early childhood learning centers, service connection center after school programs, wellness center, gym and a multi-purpose space in terms of outdoor recreation would go from one half acres of a playground to 3.6 acres of four blocks of linear park within on sunnydale avenue. and as i described just earlier, we would go from a disconnected curvilinear curvilinear street pattern with failing utilities to a new street grid. trees green stormwater infrastructure, lighting, translated infrastructure and all new lease . the development agreements, subsequent approval are largely done at the staff level through phase application review and through design review. so far, the planning department has approved through four phase applications, which would include up to 674 units five design review application fees, which would include approximately 487 units with one

still under review. block seven the project in after i complete my presentation to win of related california, will provide you with greater detail as to their progress in building out sunnydale back to block seven. block seven is currently under review with us and block seven is actually largely the impetus for these amendments. as you know, as you may remember, the dsg essentially provides most of the design controls for buildings within development agreements, including sunnydale and for the hope sf projects, including sunnydale, the height, the absolute maximum height is regulated through the planning code height map. but then in the planning code, further refers to the dsg for more restrictive height limits on a on a block by block basis. and sunnydale was largely designed with a most most of the blocks being 40ft to

tie into the neighborhood. and so block seven is currently zoned as 40 40ft for four stories when the when the project went to start design in, there had been grading activity in the which caused a portion of that building to be restricted to three stories. and that's because just the way the planning code requires us to measure height, it just cut off part of that building because cause the design controls and guidelines document is something that you can amend. we thought the most elegant way to kind of address this was just to rezone or to redo the designation on this particular block to 50ft. so that is what is before you, i should mention the block seven itself is not before you. we did provide it in your packets as information on. but again, after we get done with this amendment, we'll be able to further review and approve that project on a staff level. so we wanted to take this opportunity since this was going to be before you to do some additional cleanups to the dsg document. there were 17

amendments besides the rezoning block, seven from 42 to 50ft. and i will so there were there were 17 delineated in your staff report. i will describe them here more generally. the first the first topic was dealing with block three. block three had been described in the dsg originally as senior housing, but because it was one of the largest and first blocks, it was important to provide as much family housing as possible to enable those those families that were leaving the buildings that were being demolished into a new building. we wanted the second topic was flexibility for street design. currently it indicates that all streets need to be built with build outs. while that's the preferred intervention, we wanted to allow some flexibility where that might not technically be feasible. and just in terms of as builts we wanted to include, we wanted to update the documents where street names had been assigned, particularly at

miller's and harmonica, and then similarly to describe harmonica as it was i'm sorry, harmonia as it was actually built out, which was slightly different than what is described in the dsg. we wanted the dsg currently describes all sort of setbacks and rear yards. similarly, we wanted to distinguish the condition where you have really rear yards, where they're up against neighboring properties and not along rights of way. we wanted to make that distinction because there are design considerations that are different in those in those two different contexts, particularly around fencing. and then we wanted to add some we wanted to there is a requirement in there or an allowance in there for a five foot additional height bonus where you have steps and stoops. we wanted to make further enable that bonus to be to be used for other types of conditions such as tall retail or tall lobbies which really meet the spirit of that allowance. and then finally, we

wanted to remove some duplicative controls and then specifically that comes to mind is one that was very kind of strangely written around blank facades. we have that in other places in the dsg that we can refer to when we're addressing, wanting to make sure that all all facades are are sufficiently active commissioners planning code, special use district for sunnydale allows you to make these amendments. and so that is why we were before you. the recommendation again, is to approve the amendments as described in the staff report in the in the motion before you. and as i just described, this concludes my presentation. kimberly or i are happy to answer any questions again to win of related california is also here and she is looking forward to making a presentation for you. thank you. thank you. you have five minutes. okay i, i

might need help with this technology. okay. okay good afternoon, commissioners. my name is chung nguyen. i am an affordable housing developer for related california, and i want to start by thanking matt and kimberly for providing a great overview and for their continual support of our efforts in at sunnydale. as mentioned, i'm pleased to add a quick development update on behalf of mercy and related the joint venture development team. i'm so sunnydale is part of visitacion valley since it was originally built in the 1940s and sunnydale is just south of mclaren park and east of balboa park related and mercy. we were

honored to have been selected back in 2007 to redevelop sunnydale, and i want to emphasize that the success of redeveloping sunnydale remains a top priority for both of our organizations and before walking through the progress we've made to date, i'll note that none of this work could be possible without the collaboration with the city of san francisco, notably mcrd and the hope sf initiative as well as san francisco housing authority. the residents and our nonprofit partners as today, we've built to 100% affordable housing developers. it's fully leased up kassala and to 90 malosi comprise a 222 units at and this very busy slide summarize our projects currently under construction by the end of this year, we'll complete the redevelopment of sunnydale avenue streets street, sidewalk

and other infrastructure improvements between hahn and santos street. and we are erecting a state of the art community center and rec center to the north and two additional 100% affordable housing developments to the south. and that's an additional 170 units. here's an aerial view of the community center and rec center. the community center will be home to the sunnydale boys and girls club, an early childhood education center. and the hub is really important to us because we're striving to not only build quality, affordable housing, but a whole community and adding amenities and features that aren't currently available in the neighborhood. this is a rendering of the herz rec center for the community center living room, and we strive to make this hub be the living room for the

entire neighborhood. the multi-purpose room. we hope that there's going to be robust programing at these two places as the gym and then block three a and three b in addition to 170 affordable units, there is a very active ground floor for spaces for small businesses in the community. many nonprofits, as well. we've partnered with the department of public health to provide a wellness center on the ground floor and a second early childhood education center for this neighborhood. and then this is the last slide. block seven and block nine represents the next exciting phase of sunnydale with planning commission, with with with commission's approval. block seven will be able to achieve 89 much needed affordable units and block nine. currently, we are planning for 95 additional affordable units. we hope to get

started with the construction of these two projects after the completion of a and three b to maintain momentum and deliver on our promise as going on 17 years. now with to the sunnydale community. i appreciate the opportunity to present. i'm happy to take questions and i'm here with from mercy our architect partners, aida sullivan as well as gonzalo castro. our construction manager. thanks. thank you. that concludes sponsor presentation. we should take public comment. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter either. if you're in the chambers, you need to come forward. again. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three to be recognized. and if you're joining us via webex, you need to raise your hand. seeing no members of the public in the chambers and no members calling in or joining us remotely,

public comment is closed and this matter is now before you commissioners. thank you. it's great to get an update at some time on these long term projects . we can kind of lose track of where they are. so just really appreciate the update and the great visual presentation and thank you. mr. snyder, for your summary of what we're approving today. okay. it seems very reasonable and glad to see making some other adjustments at the same time that you are realizing the need for the additional height to be allowed. so i certainly am in full support of the amendments that are proposed today. commissioner moore i, i echo your sentiments. this project has been around for a very, very long time. the remarkable thing is that it has been in steady hands in the department and that gives us a significant amount of credibility. i have called out mr. snyder, mr. earnhardt, many times before for thank you for doing such an incredible job and really strongly stewarding this project to where it needs to go very much in support. great is there a motion from anyone to

make a motion to approve? second, excellent. thank you, commissioners. there is a motion that has been seconded to approve on that motion. commissioner braun i ruiz i. commissioner diamond i commissioner imperial high commissioner coppell i. commissioner moore and commission president tanner i so move commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0 and will place us on item 14 for case number 2019. hyphen 014485 for the stonestown development information presentation. good afternoon, commissioners. president tanner patrick reese, planning department staff. i am excited to bring before you today an update an update on the stonestown development project. the project marks the collaboration between the sponsor brookfield properties and the city in the creation of

a development agreement, design standards and guidelines, master infrastructure plan and related zoning map and planning code amendments. we were last before you february 9th for an informational presentation and review and comment on the draft eir we are pleased to provide an update today as an informational item, i'm joined today by the project team lily lenoir, principal planner here at sf planning. ted conrad, who is project manager at pwd, and christy donnelly, senior development director at brookfield properties. we are also joined by expert staff and sponsor team members to field any specific questions that would benefit from their expertise. so thank you all for being here today. we'll be providing an update on the project at reacquainting ourselves with the existing site and town center vision. we'll also be walking through project elements and discussing an additional housing approach and housing program, which is in

direct response to the commission's request to study more project density, discussing transportation and the multimodal connections and system improvements the project is providing, highlighting, parking and access opportunities within the project site and finally preview ing proposed community benefits and affordable housing plan that will continue to benefit from active, ongoing and productive negotiations between the city and brookfield. as a reminder, in the context of our housing element, focusing on housing, on the west side and the city's obligation to build 82,000 new residential units over the course of the next eight years, or slightly less stonestown is well suited for housing given its large amount of underutilized surface parking lots, proximate to public transportation, open space and neighborhood amenities that lend itself to creating a complete neighborhood that is well integrated into the existing stonestown galleria. over the past three years, the city has

been working in close collaboration with the sponsor team to further equitable outcomes of this project, including the public engagement process. as well as project components such as provision of housing, neighborhood services and retail transportation, open space and parks. we are on track to bring final approvals before the commission later this year, which will include full certification of the eir and recommendation of approval of planning code and zoning map amendments that will be before you all and then additional project approvals by other agencies will also take place at that time. following these approvals. adoption of the planning code and zoning map amendments will be before the board of supervisors and then after approvals, the project will be free to begin phased implementing ation. with that, i'll pass it off to christy donnelly from brookfield properties. thanks, patrick. good afternoon, commissioners.

our team is excited to be here this afternoon to share an update on our progress to transform stones town from a retail center to a town center. today stones town is a 41 acre privately owned property situated on the west side of san francisco. the 11 acre center features popular offerings such as whole foods, regal cinema, target, sports, basement trader joe's, shake shack and a newly opened daiso nearly 27 acres of underutilized parking lots around the mall as it exists, the site is one of unrealized opportunity. his over the past four years we have been working to transform stones town into a new and exciting mixed use transit oriented center by creating a plan that fosters economic growth. social interaction, environmental sustainability and community wellbeing. we'll do that by creating a thriving retail

dining and entertainment destination with new parks and open spaces for all, building much needed new housing while improving parks, parking access and connections in and around the site. the project will be built in phases around the mall over 15 plus years. careful done so that businesses continue to thrive during construction and ultimately stones town will become more than just a retail center. it will be a vibrant and dynamic community hub and a model for what a successful mall redevelopment should look like. let's take a look at the major project elements which have been shaped with the input from the community members, the city and our consulting teams over the past four years. our vision is to create 10,900 new residential units. from 3 to 18 stories. the four towers in this plan take

advantage of the lower topography at the south and southwest edges of the site and are located along the sf state campus, where there are higher heights. today at the heart of our plan, our six acres of parks , plazas and open space that knit together the phases of this new, vibrant, mixed use neighborhood. we're also building a new retail main street and safe and accessible bike and pedestrian pathways. our vision also calls for underground and above ground parking garages in strategic locations to improve access. this ease of parking, which i'll walk you through later in this presentation. we recognize that we have a shared responsibility to help the city alleviate the housing crisis. s and in response to this commission's request, we worked with our team to identify where that density could be placed. while preserving the open space

amenities that we believe are critical to creating a thriving town center. this overall approach would add an additional nearly 600 more units, increasing the total from 2900 to 3500. the pieces of this housing tapestry include the following converting some proposed office space and all hotel uses along 20th avenue to residential density. we would yield 196 units, adding a fifth tower at the southwest corner of the site increases residential density by another 125 units at this location, an as in the four others, the same site and urban design considerations were applied. we also studied senior housing, which could increase density up to 90 units. we're also actively speaking with brave church about building housing on their site while keeping the church at stones town, which would create another 125 units. we don't have an

agreement at this point, but we're evaluating options to include their property into our project. the nearly 600 units i describe here are included in our analysis. if housing is added to the current vision, it will be reflected in the final eir at and we don't expect it would have a material impact to our project timeline. importantly to keep the current vision of 2900 units, the former theater site at north buckingham must be used for housing as proposed. whether 2900 units or 3500 units or something in between is approved. we believe stonestown has a shared responsibility in shaping the future of san francisco with feedback from the community and the city. we've crafted a housing program that meets citywide needs. we've heard that many residents are planning ahead and want to stay in the neighborhood. for them, we're creating and exploring ways to provide senior housing as an

option to stay in their community. we our plan will provide workforce and family housing, and there'll be a mix of townhomes, mid-rise tower units with larger family and multifamily units. ■situated net to the muni line, the stonestown townsend is a transit oriented development, further enhanced by our thoughtfully designed pedestrian and bike friendly layouts that reduce the need for excessive car usage and improved safety. we're providing significant pedestrian and bicycle improvements, including adding nearly a mile of protected bike lanes so that it's easier to traverse the site in all directions and connect with the surrounding neighborhood. we're also committed to reducing trips, vehicle trips by a minimum of 10% as part of our transport transportation demand management plan. stonestown is a neighborhood, city and regional attraction. part of its allure

is that it has a lot of parking and we've heard from many community members that it's important to maintain easy parking and access to the mall. here's what we're doing. we're modernize, easing and reconfiguring parking locations , eyes and access to improve efficiency and convenience, parking will include both above and below ground parking garages throughout the site. the existing underground parking will remain, but the entrance will be moved to the west side to make way for new plazas and the retail main street. a new structured parking garage will be built on the north side to provide easy access to the new parks and open space and plazas. whole foods and other tenants on that side of the mall. these improvements will serve to enhance both the resident and visitor experience at the new town center. at this point, i'd like to pass it off to ted conrad, project manager at pwd, to provide a summary of the project's community benefits. thank you, christy. good

afternoon, commissioners. my name is ted conrad. i'm with the office of economic and workforce development. as you know, on development agreement, projects like stonestown, ewg negotiates the development agreement terms , including the community benefits and affordable housing that the project will be required to provide. and while the project is advancing really well, i should note that we are still in active, ongoing and very productive negotiated with brookfield and so the summary of community benefits that i'll describe today is not finalized and is still in flux. but that said, i think it's shaping up to be a really productive and responsive package of benefits that will support the community and the city. so to begin with, some of the highlights you'll see in front of you the project will create six acres of open space. this is parks, plazas and walkways that will all be privately delivered, maintained and programed. an important highlight of that will be the town square on the west side of the mall, which will be a new and improved home for the very popular farmers market, not far from its current location. perhaps the biggest benefit that

the project will provide is thousands of units of new market rate and affordable housing. i'll speak a little bit more to that on the next slide, and there will be a new child care facility as well as a senior center created on site that christy mentioned. the new retail space that will be built on site, especially along 20th the new 20th avenue. we will be putting terms in the da to prioritize community serving retail there really to ensure that this project fulfills its promise of being a town center. obviously the project, a project of this size, is a major economic driver through the first source hiring rules as well as a local business enterprise target will make sure that we're local workers and local businesses have the opportunity to tap into that economic activity and benefit from it. so importantly, the site design makes new connections and new access to rolf nickel junior playground. that's a rec park facility just adjacent to the northwest corner of the park. the project will also be supporting capital improvements to the to the park

itself to make sure that it's in the proper shape to accommodate all the demand from the existing and new residents. addition the project will generate over $25 million in development impact fees for the mta to be spent on on agency capital projects. next, i'd like to speak to the affordable housing plan and once again, i do have to say we are still in active ongoing negotiations with brookfield and i don't have every detail resolved that i can share with you today, but i did want to talk about it. it's critically important. i know it's of interest to many stakeholders and i wanted to describe sort of the broad strokes of the plan as it is emerging. so i think it's important to say that our goal here is to really strike the right balance between maximizing the amount of affordable housing that we require the project to provide. while not not, not resulting in an undue burden financially on the project such that it is infeasible and

doesn't get built, obviously the last thing that any of us would want would be a project at a site with this potential to sit unbuilt because we were unrealistic about what the project could could build. director hillis mentioned earlier in this meeting the legislation to reduce the citywide inclusionary rates and obviously a lot of those same dynamics and factors are at play here at stonestown that said, this is a development agreement . it'll be built out over multiple economic cycles, likely and, you know, give on the scale and some of the other benefits and advantages that da's have. we will be requiring that the project provide a level of affordable housing in excess of what the planning code would require for a non development agreement project. those units that we do provide will focus on housing opportunities for seniors, for educators, for families, as well as creating new homeownership opportunities. this is based on feedback that we've heard from from community stakeholders and i think the last thing i'd like to say on

this is a really central principle that we're trying to bake into the housing plan is flexibility. so providing the developer more flexibility in each phase as they meet their affordable housing obligations for how they can meet those obligations. so whether it's inclusionary units in otherwise market rate buildings, 100% standalone affordable projects, payment of in lieu fee or land dedication. again, we we've found that flexibility is key for these long term projects to be implementable. with that, i'll pass it back to christy. thank you all. thanks, ted. are our plan for a vibrant and dynamic town center is also a catalyst for significant economic growth and job creation . the presence of various types of businesses, including retail, restaurants, offices and entertainment venues, create economic diversity and job

opportunities for the community , and we anticipate creating. 11,500 construction jobs, including union jobs and 500 new retail and office jobs. with the critical mass of housing, we're creating the demand to support small scale neighborhood serving retail. the small businesses will get a further boost from visitors to the parks and open space that we're providing. and customers of the mall, which draw from a wider trade area. having residents new amenities and other improvements, will support new and existing businesses and attract a wider range of customers and consumers . before i jump into what's next, i'd like to take a moment to share a little bit more about how we got here. our presentation today is the result of a comprehensive and inclusive community engagement process. first four years listening, learning and having multiple ongoing conversations community

about our vision for our new town center. we hosted office hours and walking tours tabled at the stonestown farmers market. given presentations to local neighborhood merchant and homeowner associations. we convened a working group of neighborhood stakeholder and had many public workshops to get feedback on our plans. so what's next? this fall will continue our extensive community engagement program. before we come back to the commission for our final eir certification and project approvals. if it all goes well, we'll seek final project approvals with the board of supervisors early next year. in closing, we believe that our plan for transforming stonestown from a retail center to a town center provides a rare opportunity to add much needed housing to the west side, create new parks and open spaces designed to cultivate connection and community, and diversify retail to ensure that the mall

and new and existing businesses thrives through economic cycles . it is a project that will unlock the site's potential by fostering social interaction. environmental sustainable city and community well-being for generations to come. on behalf of brookfield properties and our consultants, thank you to the city staff and community members who have helped to advance this project. we appreciate the opportunity to update you on our plans and progress this afternoon on. thank you. that concludes the presentation. we should open up public comment to members of the public. this is your opportunity to address the commission on this map matter. this is an informational item and no action will be taken today through the chair. each member of the public will be afforded two minutes. eileen bogan speaking on my own behalf, the original design seemed

formulaic. 200 room hotel did not seem well suited to the site. fortunately the project sponsor has elected to eliminate the hotel and replace it with housing. the office space also did not seem well suited for the site, although the office space has been reduced from 200,000 to 96,000 thousand square feet, this is still questionable when the project sponsor from petrol power station stated before the commission that that they stated the little office space would be built in the near term, but they would build all the remaining office space later as expected, the market to rebound. however, the office of the city administrator is analyzing the city's portfolio of owned and leased office space for city employees. the goal is to downsize on the belief that the hybrid work will continue to be the norm. i would urge the project sponsor to reassign reassign the remaining office space to housing regarding institutional use of 63,000

square foot. if any, are medical facilities, i would urge the project sponsor to reallocate the space to housing as as there is already the stonestown medical building just north of the stonestown property with over 54,000ft!s of medical offie space. regarding potential public benefits planning and dpw have confirmed that the project will have dedicated emergency firefighting water pumps. pipes on the project as part of the stonestown project, same as pier 70 and five m. however the sfpuc has stated that there is no funding to hook up the pipes to the city's pipes. an affiliate of brookfield properties is brookfield infrastructure. as a public benefit. brookfield infrastructure could design build pipes to the city's oceanside treatment facility. also though, the puc is currently going toilet to tap for the parks. and i would urge the thank you. good afternoon,

commissioners john avalos with the council of community housing organizations. i really appreciate the presentation and the comprehensive approach that brookfield has shared with us today. building a town center housing and all the community amenities is really essential. it's great to see that transit is involved in that as a community housing organization, it's really important that we actually look at how we can also build from the ground up, how we can ensure that we are meeting our housing element goals and our are affirmatively, affirmatively furthering fair housing goals. how we can ensure that the bipoc communities of san francisco can have access as we start to build on the west side and overall how we can maximize affordability. brookfield is mentioning that that's something that they're concerned about and i think that's a really important that we actually align the affordability goals with what the city's goals are. we have a

housing element that says that we need to build 82 000 units of housing altogether, but within that is 46,598 below market rate units. so at different levels of affordability that need to be built, which means that we need to be building at least 2 to 1 below market rate units to market rate units. that should be our overall goal. we set as a city, as a planning commission and as a planning department and as an office of economic and workforce development. we should be looking at how we can rebuild the tools necessary to find that level of affordability so we can actually have an economy that is founded on housing, working people, building housing for working people, and ensuring that we can actually have the people available all to do the work of growing this economy. thank you so much. and look forward to the work that you do in the years to come. good

afternoon, commissioners. my name is hamid kamigami. i'm the real estate director of development for san francisco state university, stonestown and san francisco state are basically partners and they're neighbors. we have always had excellent experience sources dealing with them. they're very receptive to our comments on the environmental impact report about how this project might affect the san francisco state community, which consists of faculty, staff and students. furthermore some of the development and some of the outlets that have basically been incorporated into the mall have benefit the san francisco state university example. the our community can walk to the mall, they don't have to drive and they can basically do their purchases at trader joe's whole foods target and other outlets. i mean that is a real plus,

especially because some of them provide affordable products. we have about we're going to have about close to 5000 people in our community. we soon and finally, basically, i think this project would and especially the housing part of it, would help the san francisco housing shortage. and also we're hoping that it would contribute to the our our educator communities overall. i think this would be become a community center that would be great, beneficial to our community. thank you very much. commissioners. good afternoon. my name is greg teixeira. i'm a member of the community working group with brookfield. i'm also a district seven native. i'm the son of two native san franciscans. i'm a member of saint stephen's parish church, which is adjacent to stonestown, and i have two

children at that school. i'm also a volunteer with the san francisco ymca, and that's how i came to meet the group and be nominated to join. growing up on the west side of the city, a lot of foggy days and i got to tell you, i joined the working group with a little bit of suspicion, a little bit of concern, because a big project like this is going to have a definite impact on my life, on my children's life and our community's life. i cannot tell you how impressed i've been by brookfield and their individuals, specifically ruelle, who's been doing the community outreach about how much listening they've done. so the biggest comment from me today for you is i was very proud by the presentation they put forward. and i just want to share with you as commissioners to know that how much of those slides were actually brought to you by community members and by real listening about what we need. we know the project of this scope and size is never going to make every single person happy. but we do. i firmly believe, loving the city that it's very important that we

explore this project further, that we move it forward, and we work in a sense of community to help all. so thank you so much for your time on this matter. good afternoon. my name is leslie french. i've got a hard act to follow from the previous speaker. i just want to echo a lot of what he said. i live about a mile from the project. anybody who knows me knows i don't like change. i've been incredibly impressed with this project and specifically with the outreach i'm on my community board. there were a lot of spectacle. people that didn't want to see this happen when we need housing, we need housing on the west side, we need smart housing and smart growth and this project is there and the outreach has been tremendous. i've done walking tours. i've gone to open houses. there have been staff on hand to take comment at every step of the

way. and i and i and i signed on as a skeptic at the beginning. and i just really want to give my full support for this project . and i hope you will, too. thanks very much. good afternoon, commissioners is cynthia gomez, research analyst at unite here local two. so i'm here to talk about brookfield's track record as a partner with san francisco and to say that if this project needs to happen, it needs to be a lot better for the city. the last time the city partnered with brookfield was through a development agreement for pier 70 and brookfield sued the city in order to avoid paying the city's newly increased taxes under prop i, the city had to spend more than two years defending this lawsuit . it and the taxes were supposed to go towards homeless services during the same time period brookfield was involving the city in another lawsuit. this time in order to pay less in property taxes on the ritz carlton hotel. the stonestown was proposed in early 2021, and

not until this week did the brookfield make any commitments or propose any specifics on affordable housing besides the minimum requirement. they still haven't committed to any what they've proposed is actually going to widen the gap between the city's needs for market rate and affordable housing and their telling you that all this is still between the city and brookfield to negotiate. brookfield is, to quote the financial times, a giant triangular jigsaw board that spreads across the world and covers assets worth $500 billion in 2020. that figure is now $850. billion is not only can developers of this size afford to provide enough affordable housing for the city's needs, but if there's future talk of development of public financing deals or tax breaks for this development, they wouldn't need any at this size. if the city is going to upzone this land and create tremendous value for the developer, it's only right that

this project be good for san francisco as well. thank you. hi good afternoon, commissioner. my name is tiffany. you and i'm living in sunset district for like almost 18 years and i'm work in hilton san francisco, union square for 23 years. and i'm wanting to say that if this proposal project is going to happen, it needs to be much better for san francisco than what is proposed. here is the example for how hard it is for people like my friend to afford the house. here. i have a friend that they live in sunset for many years, but now they cannot afford to live here. they moved to prison, but she and her husband has to come back to san francisco to work. but they

don't drive so early in the morning and they have to take back to san francisco. so her husband is like a coke in the market street. so but for her, she's like a house care provider . she has to take bath and then transport to the muni and then come back to sunset district. but she would like in a different family. so she got like maybe 2 or 3 hours in one family and then she need to wait outside and then for the next family and they need to go back home in late night. so that's why workers like my friend can't afford to live in the house like a few want to build. we want to ask your help to demand more. we need more apartment big enough for family. thank you. hello, commissioners. my name is zafar

. i work and i've lived in san francisco for over 20 years in the north beach area before i got a union job, i was forced to work three jobs in order to afford to live here. i didn't have health care at the time. after i got my union job, it gave me health care. but even with that job, the prospect of owning or even entering at a market rate apartment is completely out of reach. for me . i'm not sure how many people can afford to live in a single unit apartment or what kind of families they can raise. there i know that all of my colleagues back here cannot. this is exactly how san francisco got into affordability disaster and the people in red back here in blue are the people that are suffering. and i hope that you guys take our words and our stories into consideration and i hope that brookfield is held accountable. that's it. thank you very much. hi good

afternoon. committee city. my name is joanne liu. i live in san francisco for a. for seven sorry. i work for hotel for 17 years so and i'm i'm a union member and my husband working is you know. minimum rate. so we have two daughters and they are in college right now. so we don't have enough money to buy buy house. so when this border have the project is happening. so we so i'm asking more can help the more affordable housing because you can see if somebody go to stone town area so we can see most. lay mrt and some the

behind the stone town they have a lot the mobile house. why? because they don't have money to rent the house. they don't have job they have for family at 4 or 5. i live in a mobile house so we asking when the project happening. so we asking more. the affordable house. so we can live in. we love the city. we want the city. for the future. we you know my husband when i can affordable to buy the house or we don't have money to buy the house. so we asking for more affordable house when the project is begin. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners.

my name is fabio and i live in lower nob hill and i've worked at the olympic club for five years and i want to say, if this project is going to happen, it needs to be much better for san francisco than what is proposed here. an example of how hard is for people like me to afford housing. here i am struggling to pay my rent. it's not fair to me and the workers offered san francisco. it's impossible to buy a house in this city. workers like me can afford to live in the housing. brookfield wants to build. we are asking for your help to demand more. we need more apartments big enough for families. i agree with the affordable housing advocates that this project should bring a lot more affordable housing along. brookfield should not get any special breaks or treatment

like tax breaks or public financial deals. we shouldn't let brookfield make billions off a deal that that's not good enough for our city. thank you very much. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is brian wheeler. i'm a long time resident of balboa terrace, which is right in the immediate vicinity of stonestown. i'm also a volunteer at the ymca and through that have come to work with brookfield, also on the community advisory board and i just wanted to take a brief mention in a brief moment to further highlight what christy had said about the community outreach, the amount of outreach that has gone on has been significant. they presented to our local we presented to our home homeowners association a there's people at the farmers market, people at the mall, and what i want to really emphasize is that is not just performative

outreach. having been on the advisory board, i've seen every iteration of these plans over the course of several years, and i've seen how much it has adapted to the community. feedback i will say that the people in the neighborhoods surrounding the area are very enthused about this project. by and large, we all came to it very skeptically. we're all very concerned about traffic, housing, things like that. but i think we've all been won over by the amount of outreach. there's been by the amount that they've taken our views on board. we've heard a lot about how we all know we need to build 82,000 units of housing. we are never going to get there if we don't start allowing projects like this to go through. we have an affordability housing crisis and our housing, because we're not building enough and we're never going to get to our goals unless the west side does its part as well. and i don't think you will find anywhere on the west side where we can build anywhere near this amount of housing. so i would urge everybody to recognize that this is a great option for the city and will help get a goals more than probably any other option out there. so urge you to support

it. thank you. good afternoon. my name is barry hermanson. i'm a member of the san francisco green party and i'm also a former member of the executive committee of the san francisco group of the sierra club. i understand that you received a letter in support of this project from the sierra club. and i have to say i'm very embarrassed by that letter because the only asks in other than to say we're going to support is to say, oh, be sure to make sure to include charging stations for electric vehicles as needed. now and immature and also charging stations for bicycles. but to me is very elitist and it really benefits people who are well-to-do to the

sierra club, at least in san francisco, used to stand for our yes, we want housing, but we need affordable housing. we've seen over the last few decades people moving out of the city and having to commute out from tracy from san bento because they cannot afford to live here . now, this is something, obviously that the private market is not going to do because we're seeing with our development today that we're not even seeing market rate being built because it's just not profitable. what we need instead is for government to step up and help to afford affordable housing as we used to do. i wrote an article recently. i encourage you to check it out, beginning of this year, i wrote an article called regarding this

project called segregate or integrated housing. if we build 80% market rate or more, we will have segregated housing. thank you. thank you. seeing no additional members of the public in the chambers coming forward, let's go to our remote callers. good afternoon, commissioners. jake price on behalf of the housing action coalition, calling in support of this project. the project team brought this to our review committee back in december of 2022, and our committee members gave particularly strong commendation to its land use, its urban design and its community benefits and input. i am really blown away by the extensive amount of support from the neighbors today for this project and we want to really

thank both brookfield for their extensive outreach as well as this commission for pushing for more density. and we're really excited at the substantial increase in housing that the project team is looking for. so this project will be a massive win for the stonestown area and for the west side of san francisco and really for the city as a whole. and we cannot wait to see shovels in the ground soon. thank you. good afternoon. my name is erica zweig. i, i live in the outer sunset for 50 years. can you hear me? we can. okay um, i'm a member of a group called the forward and a newly formed coalition called the west side housing justice coalition. we first of all, you've heard some very important things from here

about brookfield and about the need for affordable housing from truth. and john avalos, i hope you will reread their commentary and the members of the unions and so we're in support of more density. if you know, if we're dealing with affordable the stonestown development is one of the most significant opportunities in the near future for our city to advance the critical, affordable housing and racial and other social equity goals in in order to meet our arena mandate of creating 46,000 new affordable homes to the very low the low and moderate income housing households over the next eight years, we must ensure that students town development maximizes the number and percentage of affordable units.

it's also a very low percentage of family housing included in the very nonspecific presentation and right up by brookfield and we hope you'll look at that and see if we can't move that up to the need for family. housing is a good opportunity here. currently brookfield is recommend sending 37% only if we don't hold brookfield accountable to the highest affordability commitments. the project will exacerbate the extreme economic and racial exclusion in the sunset and on the west side and accelerate the already extreme displacement impacts of low income tenants. and our most vulnerable members. please be strong on this. one good afternoon, commissioners. my name is kenneth russell. i live in district seven, not far from stone's town. i support this

development and especially with the addition of 600 homes in the updated plan. we desperately need more housing and more walkable areas, especially with solid transit connections. i think it's great to have places like this where people don't have to drive everywhere and we'll be able to live and have so many desirable retail options around them. we should do everything we can to support this development and encourage others like this, especially on the west side. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is laurie lederman. i live in the inner sunset in district seven. stonestown is an excellent location for a comprehensive community development. however, today's presentation lacked clarity, much less any commitment to maximizing affordable housing. there is ample evidence and agreement that our most dire housing need by far is for deeply affordable housing. the stonestown project is an ideal opportunity to address and begin to correct the imbalance created

by our over production of market rate housing and our significant underproduction of affordable housing, especially for lower income seniors and families. i urge this commission to exercise all of your influence and authority to insist that this development maximize affordable housing with emphasis on family and senior housing for very low , low and moderate income households. thank you. hi, good afternoon, commissioners. my name is danny sauder. i'm the chair of san francisco sierra club housing committee. and speaking today in support of this project, really proud on behalf of the 6000 members of the sierra club to support stonestown. and we think this is the exact type of project that we need to be supporting and building in san francisco, an opportunity to transform a few dozen acres of parking lots into a mixed use community. 3000

homes in particular, as we're building more in san francisco and as the west side hopefully realizes that it needs to do its part, we think this can be a blueprint for what good communities on the west side, in the southern part of san francisco, what good communities look like. so happy to support this project and look forward to hearing more about the increased density. thank you. hello, commissioners. my name is herb. i've lived in the sunset district, the city for almost 30 years. these days i walk downtown to access its many amenities. i'm calling today to say that i support affordable family, equitable housing and by that i mean homes for very low, low income and moderate income households. so in my opinion, the stonestown development project has has the potential to

meet our critical affordable housing goals. but in order to make sure that the stonestown development project meets those housing needs or very low, low income, moderate income, household needs, this commission must ensure that the developer brookfield, will maximize the number of affordable homes for those very low, low income and moderate income households. furthermore, this commission must ensure that the developer for brookfield will be held accountable. well to meet those affordable affordability commitments. so, commissioners, when you make your decision about the kingstowne development project, please keep in mind the most vulnerable members of our community who need access to quality housing. thank you all for taking my call. hi. good

afternoon, commissioner. my name is jessica. paula and i support at brookfield wanting to redevelop the parking lot to housing senior housing, affordable housing. and i hope that they'll the plan gets approved quickly. and i also hope that they bring back all of gordon because i kind of missed all of gordon and i kind of want it back. thank you very much. good afternoon, commissioners. ozzie brown with san francisco land use coalition. i'm just calling to echo the comments from a minority community who correctly brought up the fact that this project would expand affordable housing. is a slap in the face of those who really need housing in this town. they want to really need housing the

most. by contrast, the residents who commented in support of this project somehow, and maybe inadvertently disclosed what's really wrong with it, praising brookfield's excellent community outreach because they reached out to the homeowners nearby obviously excludes the people who desperately need housing, not the homeowner and members of homeowner association. as you just heard, the pleas for affordable housing from the low income minority folks. the same people, mind you, the same people that the housing element claims they are trying to address racial and social equity folks. so i would like this commission to actually take a hard look at this project and try to get the maximum affordable units out of brookfield. this this is as a as the presenters pointed out, this

is a site with unrealized potential. we don't come across stonestown type of type of site in san francisco too often. but we do need this commission to weigh in and ask for more affordable housing. if we cannot do that with a site of this magnitude, we won't be able to do that anywhere. so do your job and ask for more affordable housing. thank you. are those all the speakers? it is last call for public comment on this matter. seeing no additional requests to speak commissioners public comment is closed and this informational item is now for your review and comment. great. thank you. just want to thank everyone who came out to speak in person or who

called in. thank you for paying attention and being part of this process. s also want to just call out the great community outreach that we've heard a bit about. it's not often that we hear such lauding for community outreach and not just the outreach and the actions, but again, the response that's evident in the very thoughtful proposal and very thoughtfully designed proposal we had today, the last time that this was before us, i was among one of several commissioners asking for more housing, more housing and more housing. and certainly today we're joined by folks asking for more affordable housing in the project. so i wonder, mr. conrad, if you could come up and share a little bit more, you might repeat some of what you shared earlier just about the process the city goes through in the negotiations to try to hammer out, certainly, we understand, more affordable housing than is required by code. maybe you can remind folks what that is and then just kind of what we might expect and how you all do your work to get that hammered out in the development agreement. yeah. thank you, president tanner, ted conrad with the office of economic and workforce development. so just to answer one of the questions

you asked the new to citywide affordable housing requirements for new projects coming in would be 15% for on site rental and higher for offsite or paying the fee. and likewise. yeah. so we will certainly be requiring that the project exceed those requirements. s beyond that, i don't, i don't have a number that i can share with you today to speak to the process that we talk about. it's pretty involved . we bring on, we retain an economic, a fiscal and economic consultant to run numbers. they look at the program as proposed for the project for a project like like this. it's really quite a complicated model. it's multi-phased. there's vertical models looking at, you know, the financials for every individual building that would get built. and then that all feeds into a horizontal model. they say this is a consultant that the city retains, that represents us, that gives verifies all the assumptions about what our costs, what our rents, what our

interest rates and verifies what our market returns, meaning what are the investors that a developer like brookfield has to have to bring in? what will they demand in order to invest in a project like this? relative to investing anywhere else in the country, in the world. so that's the process we are we're we're we're deep in it. we're working hard on it. there is i want to be be clear and candid. we're negotiating at probably a low point in the market. i mean, no one knows what tomorrow will bring. but certainly lower than in the recent past that that does not mean that every building they deliver and lease up and sell will be sold at these low points. and we are sort of trying to factor in some of those some of those dynamics as well, such that we're not going to, you know, you know, we're not going to make a deal that we will be held to for the next number of decades based on one low part of the market. and we will expect that the developer sort of they're going to be in a position to work

very, very hard to meet the affordable housing requirements that we will hold them to. and at the same time, we've seen development agreements, other projects around the city for a number of reasons, not move forward as quickly as we would have liked. and i think that's a real shame given the deficit of housing. we have in this city. so again, we take it very seriously, but we really do want to balance that production of housing. the consideration special considerations of a site and a project like this and the benefits that of scale and time with also being clear eyed about financial feasibility. yeah. and i think it's great to hear and remind us that we have our own consultants who are working on behalf of ourselves and the taxpayers of san francisco to figure out the very problem that we've heard, which is how much affordable housing can we negotiate into the project? and certainly i think there is an element also, as you mentioned, of time, which is to say, you know, we don't want to have days that sit around for decades and then kind of wait at the luxury of the developer. we want to be, you know, partners, certainly, but i think we would look i would certainly look forward to

understanding that there are some milestones or timing issues where it would behoove the project sponsor to move forward. otherwise, maybe other additional things kick in that again, incentives eyes them to move forward expeditiously or else. right? and so if there's not a consequence on the other end, that would be could be a challenge. but on that point, i do want to talk a little bit and i don't know if you'll be the person to answer this or if another staff person just around the challenges we've seen with some large projects in terms of infrastructure or even we had we had parkmerced here and they were talking about four years of mapping that they went through with dpwh. so i'm curious at this point, has the department of public works sf park to accept the parks if they need to do that? the fire department, if there are things like i would hate to imagine that knowledgeable folks at those agencies haven't given the okay towards the proposal and then we get it approved and then it's 4 or 5 years of rigmarole around things that quite frankly, the city should know how to do by now. and acting as though we

hadn't been negotiating this project for years. so could you give me some more confidence that this project won't suffer the same fate that many, many other large projects continue to suffer in the city? yes. thank thank you for the question. i think the issues that you identify are very real. we're very aware of them all of those agencies that you've mentioned and more. let me just list them for clarity. so we've had public works or the infrastructure task force, public utilities commission, rec park, the fire department. there have been conversations with with. thank you. mta yeah, even caltrans given 19th avenue. so a whole host of other public agencies have been at the table throughout our infrastructure plan development process for that infrastructure plan is will be an exhibit to the da and it will lay out at a schematic i don't know if it's a conceptual or schematic level, not not detailed design drawing, but working out how the streets will will be worked will sort of all

align utilities, you know, grading the whole gamut. we have i'm with the office of economic and workforce development. i'm on a team that negotiates the da's. we have another team that implement the da's. we have a project manager from that team that's been assigned to stonestown, who's been participating to help sort of issue spot and bring that knowledge of what has tripped up other older da's and their implementation so that we can try to kind of get ahead of them . and again, as we as we work out the actual legal language, we are going to be really cognizant of making sure that whatever we can do on mapping on street improvement permits, on all those things, are as as well as well prepared as we can be. i think the this is always a moving target because there's a level of design you get to for street improvement permits phase implement phase applications, et cetera. that we don't have and can't have now. so i don't think we can ever fully get rid of that risk that there will be

challenges in in implementation. but we are taking that very seriously and doing everything we can to be ahead of it. great, because i think if we want to be holding brookfield accountable, we ourselves have to also be accountable to the expectations and standards that that we would be putting forward for others. with that said, i want to just emphasize for my part, i do want to see as much affordable housing as we can afford in this project. and certainly, you know, reaching across income levels to very low. but also some of our moderate folks i know we have teacher housing, educator housing. some of those households are more moderate income and i think as we heard from the state person can be a really great asset to have of those folks being able to live near the campus and near lowell high school. so hopefully we can have a spread of incomes and that also can be increase the amount of overall percentage wise we can get even if we're doing some more kind of workforce housing level, it still counts, it still helps people have stable homes, places to live, places where they can afford to be here for a while. so thank you very much, mr. conrad. i will only just add, i know that one of the changes

that we saw is potential for additional housing at the site. that's the brave church reducing office space to have more housing potential, swapping out of the hotel for housing. and so i know part of the reason we did that is we wanted to do it within the bounds both of what i think had been presented to the community. and again, very kraft crafted very carefully with community input and at the same time not setting us back with the environmental review and having a big redesign due to the timing at which this project came to the commission and got our input, which was kind of after the eir was kind of underway. okay. that said, i will say i'm very happy to see additional housing. i think that is our priority. we'll look forward as the phases of the project unfold. just how we do overall on housing, because i do also see a value of having multiple uses on site that again, create a real neighborhood, not just a neighborhood for residences, but also places for people to stay if they're coming for a trip, you know, offices for people to work and have this really be a dynamic. i think as we heard under public comment, you know, 15 minute neighborhood that has a lot of different uses here at

this site. so those are my comments i'm going to call next on commissioner koppell. then i see commissioners imperial and commissioner braun. thank you. president tanner, thanks for giving lowell high school a shout out. so, yeah, thrilled to see this project here today. you got lowell high school, san francisco state at this project and parkmerced, which is we're starting to see more of, which is just reassuring that we're going to see more eventually housing on the west side. i don't want to be too politically correct, but i think everyone's right here. and yes, we as a consensus, we all when we first saw this project, the first thing we all said was, can we have more housing? we didn't know at what expense that may or may not happen with, but just one suggestion is, is can we even just look at maybe increasing, maybe the heights, maybe even by one story all around just to see if that would make an impact and give us more abilities to satisfy more of the people here were speaking today.

that's just my only suggestion. i, i know we're this far along in the process and it's not just as simple as that, but if we could at least look at ideas like that to, to maybe give us all some more room to, to produce a little more of everything on this project because it is a big opportunity site. but i am really happy to see what i've seen today. commissioner muriel yeah, yeah. last year i believe last year was the first time that this development was presented to us and all of the commissioners, including me as well, see this as a good opportunity in developing and building it. an and you know, one thing that i see as well in in terms of the west side. yeah i mean the stonestown in itself alone is such a successful development and i would also comment in terms of the outreach that the brookfields have done in the community. i think one thing before you know, in the west side area at least, is that when we're developing, we want to

make sure that the residents are actually have a buy in onto this. having said that, that of course there will be additional demands because this is such a big project. this, like any other projects that large developments that have happened here in san francisco before, such as like the mission rock or other developments that have happened where there are big development agreements when it comes to affordable housing. so i guess my question to this, because this is going to come later on at the planning commission for the eir and the project approvals and for the immensity of this project alone, i'd like to ask what one, whether it's food person to give me at least you know, who are the team in the affordable housing team that that the city is working on with with brookfield's and has there been any kind of also community stakeholders input into this? as

i remember in the mission rock development, there were also a lot of community stakeholders input as to how much a percentage of affordable housing into this. yes. thank you, commissioner. you know, the conversations have have been between largely been between the city, meaning food, but also cd and the planning department. and our consultants are essentially urban in this case. and brookfield, i think we have taken the lessons that we've heard through the extensive outreach about the priority is and about what type of affordable housing the community members want to see, what what meets the particular needs of this community and are working hard to incorporate those into the into the housing plan as we develop it, as there will be an identification of which, you know, nonprofit housing developer that can develop into 100% affordable housing. and has that also been identified in your blueprint plan? you know where are so i we have not

gotten into if brookfield may bring in affordable housing partners down the line. that's it's certainly it's been a bilateral agreement between brookfield and the city i think they would certainly have the right to bring in and probably i don't want to speculate too much, but probably the desire in the case of 100% affordable projects to bring in nonprofit partners, but that has not been a part of the plan as we are drafting it. i would suggest that at least because these are pretty, you know, down the line before this year end, you know, the commission is going to approve this project and they are. and you know, as you can see in the public right now, there is a big demand for requests or the big demand for affordable housing itself. and i think it will be good to have those kind of details be presented to us as well. thank you. thank you. commissioner brown. before i begin my comments on the project itself, i just want to also acknowledge how much i appreciate

brookfield's success and maintaining, running and tenanting the existing mall. i think that and i know it's a different team handling a lot of that, but still it's been really helpful to see. you know, there's been a lot of bad news over the years of anchor tenants leaving stonestown and the way that that has been backfilled, both the inline stores and the anchor tenants has been really great to see. it's a very vibrant place. it's a place i'm actually going to more and more often these days. so i appreciate that. and then also, you know, the design approach has been such that you can't really tell when there are still vacancies in the property. so it's been helpful to see. i think i have i have a question about the relationship between the expanded analysis, expanded sequa analysis and the actual commitments to the numbers of housing units that get built on the site. and maybe this is because it's my first time taking one of these large developer agreements through a planning commission. but i would like to better understand. so now we've there's been a study of, you know, up to 3500 housing units. but how does that relate

to the project sponsor commitments that that might be in the development agreement down the road. probably a multi person response to this. i'll start and then others can add. so sequa is studying sort of a maximum that could happen on the site and then the da will be much more specific about what the program is actually delivering. so from the city side, we have to make sure that there's alignment in those two numbers. but sequa is the analysis and then da is the commitment to what will be included in the project. thank you. so just to just to add to that, so sequa is basically the ceiling of what we're looking at from an environmental perspective. and then the da is going to kind of lay out how that will be built so that that is the ceiling that we're looking at right now. yeah. i think i would just add, again, these are documents that are still being drafted and are not finalized. but i think the da,

the direction that we're headed in that i think is the right direction is that the da will not have a numeric cap on the number of units that can be added. those the limit will be a functional limit due to the zoning and the special use district and the design standards and guidelines and so to the extent that some building efficiency is slightly more, you know, maybe it's more, but i think that these numbers there the numbers that brookfield has been discussing are there are our best ideas of what the maximum unit counts would be given all the physical design constraints. and how does the da sort of relate to what sort of minimum commitment might there might be for producing housing units on the site? you know, it's a great. thank you. it's a great question. the development agreement never obligates a developer to build. it is always an option to build. and so our goal is really to make sure that and obviously they've spent a considerable amount of money getting this far. they will continue to and all of their

incentives are aligned around moving forward. and but the da never mandates that they build. and i don't think that that would be a workable way forward . what we can do is try to make sure that all of the policy levers that we have baked into the deal are such that that as soon as the market allows, they can move forward. and so we're not putting we're not we're not putting any obstacles in place. i think an important thing here on this project is momentum and is getting it started. there's not really any good there's no good comparison to what stonestown will be like in the market currently. and so we really feel strongly that once they're able to move forward with a first phase, that'll sort of prove the market, that'll and that'll ease their path at raising additional money. they will also have taken down some of the really significant new infrastructure that has to be built, especially along some of these early phases. and so it's our belief that if we can help align things so that their early phases are are as feasible as

possible, that will all bode well for future implementation. thank you for that. yeah, i definitely see these are helpful responses and i you know, we've been having this discussion for a long time about maximizing the number of housing units on the site. i'm glad the analysis is studying a higher number, but as has been said, it is the cap. so i just hope that we can do everything we can, as you're saying, to push the most amount of housing on the site as possible while you're up here. mr. conrad i have one other small question relating to the community benefits and the negotiation on. i'm just i don't know if this is answerable, but i'm curious about about whether the merced branch library has come up at all as part of that and its capacity to support this level of development because it's right across the street from the stonestown site. it's a relatively small branch library and i'm curious if it's been looked at and if it hasn't, it might just be it's an area that i'm sort of focused on as well.

yeah, we have not done any kind of formal analysis about capacity or utilization of that library, but we can certainly take a look at that and be in touch with the public library. great thank you. so then otherwise, just a couple of comments. you know, when we do see this project come forward a planning commission, i'm always interested in seeing the ways in which the community benefits final deal structure exceeds the base requirements that might otherwise be in place for a site . now it's a little hard to figure out the space requirements when you are making such big adjustments to the land use and zoning on a site. but still, there are ways in which to compare. i mean, the easy example is of course the affordable housing percentage. but if there are other ways to compare what is being provided versus what would be provided through impact fees, for example, versus the infrastructure on the site, it would be just good to understand how much is the agreement leading to a deal that exceeds

the minimum requirements and then otherwise, i just want to echo everything that we've heard in terms of maximize the affordable housing on the site. i'm excited about the child care and senior center and getting more parks and open space here. and i'm also interested in the first source hiring and local business case utilization. so thank you very much. great thank you. commissioner diamond. um first, i want to restate the obvious because i think it's worth repeating, and that is that this is a great use of space. it is such a shame to see vast parking lots with shopping centers or grocery stores in the middle of them that go up 1 or 2 stories, an absolute waste of a resource. and so i just want to reiterate how important i think this kind of development is. secondly, i want to say how appreciative i am that you listened to our request that you find a way to add more housing

and not only, you know, dribs and little bits and pieces, but that the analysis would allow for at least an additional 600 units, which i hope you can realize, but i appreciate your listening carefully to what the commission had to say and modified your plans accordingly. so now a few questions for you. under the existing sequa documents, if you wanted to build more than 3500 units or change the amount of office versus housing would it require additional work or is there still enough flexibility in the eir to go above 3500? for example, if there's less office space, what are the where can changes happen without having to do any kind of research relation? so i'm going to give you my favorite answer for now, which is it depends a

professional. so as within any document, why we looked at is a maximum potential development envelope within this maximum potential potential development envelope, we looked at several scenarios, including the base project, the draft eir variant, and now what we call the revised variant with the additional units, because this is a programmatic eir while we looked at is the potential for these uses to happen in certain places which we used for our technical studies like transport and air quality, especially and noise. however there is flexibility built in within the sequa document itself and within the process. so for example, there could be changes. many minimal changes i would say in between. now and final approval to some of those as land uses. and there proposed like the proposed areas where those land uses would be. but i would say that the proposed increase number of units is within the elasticity

permitted by our existing technical studies plus additional memos that we did to show that we're not exacerbating or resulting in a new significant impact. i did want to point out, though, that, you know, sequa is also fluid, so there are a lot of mechanisms post project approval to increase units to change land uses. you know, this is a programmatic eir, it can be used for the next ten, 20 years to tear off of it. but there's a lot out there that allows the applicant and other developers to come in and make changes to accommodate market conditions or people's needs and things like that. so there's lots of different mechanisms out there. we're laying down the groundwork for the 3500 units. yeah, with good reason. there is obviously tremendous developer resistance over 15 years to change doing things that require any additional ayers or anything

that require an opportunity that could result in more lawsuits. so i think as much as we can focus between now and the end of this process to think through all the possible scenarios, which is impossible over 15 years, but to at least push and test so that we are doing whatever analysis we can right now to give them as much flexibility, because it's really hard to project. yeah what everything that they might want to do over 15 years. all i know is there may be very good ideas that come up in the future and that if it involves more work, that will likely be an enormous obstacle to doing, even though it's legally possible. yeah it's likely to be a practical, pragmatic obstacle. so just a just second, the request for trying to think through how to get as much flexibility now as possible. and i wanted to say, too, that part of our duty as an

environmental planners is to respond to the project that's being presented to us as we by no mean put a cap on any development scenarios. we are we do study what is given and we do help developers come up with better projects by having mitigation measures and i do believe that within the, you know, within the confines of sequa, we do have a programmatic eir that provides quite a bit of flexibility. i think my request was as much to the developer eir as it was to you, which is if you're thinking of things right now that would give you more flexibility, i would urge you to explore them with the city now to see whether or not the current documents can be used for those scenarios. so then moving on to the da, i'm sure that i am a expressing the collective opinion of all of us that were incredibly frustrated with the lack of actual in ground construction that we're

seeing on all these big projects sites and i'm wondering what lessons we have learned from the existing days where projects are not going forward that we can use to figure out how to create milestones with incentives is that encourage a faster development? i recognize we can't force developers to build and they take into account, you know, construction costs and market conditions and that's reasonable. but we can offer incentives to encourage them to move forward. carrots as well as sticks. we can also structure days so that rights expire for if you don't build a certain amount of market rate and affordable housing by certain dates and that you don't get to wait to year 14 to start doing anything. and so i'm wondering how you're thinking about lessons learned from the existing days, taking into account pretty bad current

market conditions to figure out how to structure this day so that we might see faster in ground construction. yeah. thank you, commissioner, for the question. i think it starts with from a baseline being as focused on on the feasibility as we can. i think from there, you know, when i mentioned flexibility earlier in the affordable housing program, i think it's i think that's compatible with what you're suggesting around incentives. so you know, giving an additional flexibility in early phases to do, you know, meet affordable housing requirements in ways that are less burdensome in those early phases. i also think took an important piece here that and that goes to the question about some of our other da's is the use of public financing. we are contemplating an enhanced infrastructure finance district here. so that's a, you know, a

power it's a form of tax increment financing. it allows the developer to access some of the incremental property taxes generated by the by the project to pay for some of the public infrastructure. there is an affordable housing. there is there are tens of millions. if not hundreds of millions of dollars of public infrastructure here on this site. and that's let me back up very briefly in my original presentation, i did make a comparison between this site and, you know, the sort of normal non development agreement infill projects that are governed by the inclusionary citywide inclusionary housing policy. and while there are certain benefits that a project like stonestown has relative to those projects, there are also certain burdens. and i think the amount of infrastructure they have to build is, is the one that rises to the top. it's really, really expensive. so there's no return on it. and the developer has to get it financed and built before they can build anything that will make them money. and so approximately a year, sometime in the last year, i don't remember exactly when

mayor breed announced a new policy to allow the use of for some of our development agreement projects. and that's mostly for our existing approved projects that are coming back and forming ifds to help them provide that sort of boost and get over that hump of building infrastructure. petrol power station project is in the process. they've they've formed an rfp and are in the process of implementing that. so we are contemplating bringing that forward for stonestown from the beginning and concurrently with the project approvals. that helps. and i also think that that really aligns with incentives because they don't get to access any tax increment until they've created tax increment by building revenue producing buildings that are on the roll. and so it really does provide both an incentive and a reward from for building quickly. so i'm delighted to hear that makes it seem like this might be more realistic and not just a great project on paper. i'm hoping that the city

is thinking similarly about affordable housing and using its own programs in order to encourage the creation of affordable housing on this site. but i just before i ask my last question, i just want to reiterate that as the developer is, you know, constantly making a calcul place about whether it wants to move forward or not and is looking at market conditions and the cost of financing. i want them to also be weighing benefit hits from the city. they'll be losing if they don't move forward. so that they are in their calculus. they are thinking, well, you know, normally i wouldn't move forward , but if i don't, then i'm losing x hundreds or millions, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in incentives, and therefore, it does make sense to move forward. now so i would just i'm sure you're all thinking that way anyways, and i would just reiterate my support and desire to see that in the day. when you move forward with that. thank you, commissioner. and then my

last question is for the developer, which is the hotel about. question about the hotel . so you've dropped it. well, i guess it's still in the in the eir, so you could go forward, but you could tell us how you're thinking about a hotel. there are no hotels in this location that i'm aware of. and you know, what are your thoughts about the market demand for a hotel there and how it fits into your site and what it means to not have a hotel and have more housing instead? i think i'm curious about the thoughts on that. yeah. so the programmatic element of a hotel was introduced at the plan based on some conversations that we had with sf state where they voiced out a desire to see a hotel because like you, they noticed that there isn't this use in the nearby vicinity. we've also heard similar feedback from the community and introduced it as

an element, as you saw in the last draft. eir um, since then we've been asked to, to look at adding additional residential density to the site and to do it in a way as commissioner tanner had mentioned, that would not put the project timeline at risk or recirculate the eir. and so as part of our our strategy to, to, to add meaningful all increase in density on site, the hotel element was identified as as a use that could be converted to residential use in order to increase the density for residential. i understand that that it's a trade off, but i am still curious about your calculus on the hotel as we add

82,000 units to the west side which doesn't have that much in the way of hotels. we have more people working at home. i'm just you know, i'm not expressing a preference one way or the other. i'm one of the commissioners who said, please go find more housing. and i understand there's only so much you can pack into the site, although i will second, commissioner koppel's comment about, you know, are there ways to add more height? but i am, you know, i'm thinking that we have to think to the future when we have 82,000 additional units and that there may be a desire for, you know, guests of people. it's not just the san francisco state, but, you know, people who live on the west side, who have friends and family who are visiting. is there a need for a hotel? and would that be a good idea or not? so, yeah, so i think the flexibility that we've discussed here that that the sequa allows us the process

allows, maintains that option into the future where the hotel was studied. is in a later phase in our development. and so having this flexibility allows us to continue to monitor the demand, the market demands for hotel in this location in and, you know, into the future when we are at a point where we are going to start developing that phase and the market support the as a feasible use at stonestown, we would certainly do. you know , explore that at that point as well. but agree with everyone that having the flexibility city allows us to look at how we might introduce a hotel as a programmatic element again in the future. i guess i was hoping for a yes and scenario so that we could figure out how to have,

you know, just 600 additional units and a hotel and a hotel. i don't think i'm pushing the office space, but but i you know, i will reiterate again, commissioner koppel's comment, which is you did such a great job in getting us this additional housing. is there a way to push it even further, given the limitations? so those are just my thoughts and comments. thank you. thank you. commissioner moore. thank you to everybody who spoke today. and it is indeed a great opportunity to transform a shopping center to a town center. and i think the configuration and location of this particular facility allows it in almost any other unprecedented way. i am in support of what what my fellow commissioners said. i am specifically in support of the idea of digging deep and committing to the challenge that everybody is facing, and that is providing sufficient, affordable housing and the type of housing that we really need. i know that

that is a difficult thing to answer right now. i hope that the ongoing work will provide answers that will shed more clarity on that, on that particular question. um i am interested to hear more of community benefits as commissioner brown was asking and, and what is at this moment missing for me and it's particularly because of what the presentation today focused on. i would like to see a clearly, clearly developed phasing strategy. it was touched on earlier in the early schematic design sessions about the project. this project moves excessively fast. i've hardly ever seen a project of this size move as quickly as this one is phasing is important because every step of how we realize the project has something to do with building a successful future. for this cannot be a project where random projects happen in

every part of the site, but at each step that we are creating complete environment that in its way incrementally realizes the vision of the whole. the other thing which i have not heard about, but i hope that that is being developed as you are all working on the development agreement, robust design guidelines are typically what accompanies a project like this, and i'm not sure who wants to speak to it. mr. ways or miss hlengwa, either of the two of you, is that in the work? and i would ask that the commission an is being updated on that particular step of the project. could you briefly speak to that, please? thank you for your question. commissioner moore. yes so as part of any development agreement in this case, design standards and guidelines are being developed with a fairly robust program that controls essentially everything that the public and also anyone who lives there will touch. that's been under development for probably over a

year. and we're we're still in robust discussions and meetings to refine what all what all the elements look like from a building controls which we had robust meetings yesterday to make sure that i think one of your concerns was if we do have five towers that they all speak with one another, that they all fit in in the context of a skyline and that they're oriented in a way that doesn't create an over dominating skyline. and massing for the project. so those are in progress as as we speak. will the commission have an ability to hear a presentation on those guidelines? because when the approval process ultimately comes, i think our understanding of the details of the project need to be far more tuned that what this informal discussion today allows us to say to you. so i strongly urge that with sufficient time before we approve the project and certify the eir, we have such

presentation. i assume site lab is continuing to work with you on that. they are well known for the exquisite work on pier 70 and other projects. so i look forward to seeing what is coming forward on this one. so i urge you to give us an update early enough for us to better understand the project. and i assume that many of the questions, the details as commissioner diamond or commissioner koppell are asking, will be addressed because flexibility will also create additional descriptions about the potential project that may arise as this particular plan is flexible in particular aspects of the implementation. so phasing guidelines, ins and support for all of what my other commissioner said, i'm happy that you're moving forward and i am hopeful that this project finds its implement first phase of implementation soon. so this project has advantages over greenfield sites like pier 70 or the power station, because there is already the infrastructure

for the site is already there. so thank you. certainly agree with having enough time to digest and give meaningful comments to the design guidelines as they come forward . commissioner reece yeah, thank you. i won't spend too much time so we can move on to the next item, but i agree with what everyone has said so far and i'm super excited about this project. just looking at the images, i think displays what the potential of the site is. i've been going to stonestown since i was in high school and when i went to sf state and now it's a place where i take my daughter. so i think it's just wonderful what you're proposing . and i just also echo the commissioner's comments about seeing what we can do about maximizing more housing and really getting creative and doing our due diligence to i don't know if it's conversations with ocd and our stakeholders in the community to see what we can do about providing more affordable housing and going

above and beyond what's required , um, in terms of the unit mix, i'm not totally unhappy with how things are divided, but i think if we can go above what's required for the affordable city, i would really encourage potentially more family housing . i don't know if other commissioners would be interested in that as well, but i think there's a really great need for more family housing and maybe looking into what's flexible around the unit mix would be of interest to me. and i was also curious if someone could speak to how are you distinguishing the 6% of senior units to the other types of housing. the 6% of additional senior housing that we studied on site is at a smaller size. so it would be be able to provide a

higher amount of density within the same building, massing and height, which is why we were able to increase the density d by 90 units by providing senior housing, which has less, less square footage requirements for each individual unit versus typical multifamily housing typology. okay thank you. um i guess that's all for me. i think just maybe one more recommendation is just consider having access in terms of parking. i know there's going to be a great deal of parking. i don't know what that's going to look like in 15 years. is that parking going to be free? i just hope that it continues to stay free and then also maybe conversations with sfmta in terms of what we're thinking around access by public transit. i just know that when i was at sf state, we were packed like

sardines on that bus. and so if we're increasing housing, if we're increasing businesses, how are we also getting ahead of the curve and making sure that our transit is robust? but best of luck. i'm super excited. great thank you, commissioners. i don't see any other hands up. we have one more item. do folks need a break or can we can we power through just we're going to keep going. all right. we heard it here first. next item. thank you. thank you very much. very good commissioners that will place us on your final item on today's agenda number 15, case number 2022 hyphen 004374 ca for the property at 100 columbus avenue. a conditional use authorization. good afternoon, commissioners. rebecca salgado, planning staff before you is a request for a conditional use authorization to establish office use on the ground floor of the subject

property in connection with the proposed change of use of the existing rear open area from public parking lot to a one story office building with surrounding landscaping. the new building will provide additional office space for a company that currently has office and retail space at 809 and 831 montgomery street, whose rear lot lines adjoin the existing rear open area at 100 columbus avenue. i'd like to note for the record that the draft motion has been updated to reflect recent changes to planning code section 134, which the project remains compliant with the project description in the exemption and determination was also updated to reflect that the existing parking lot is public rather than private. lastly, the project team has updated the design of the proposed replacement gates at the existing buildings columbus avenue and jackson street facades. since packets were published, i have hard copies of these updated materials on hand should you wish to review, and i'm also happy to go over the specifics of so desired. the project site is on the northeast

corner of columbus avenue and jackson street and is located within the c2 zoning district, the jackson square and washington broadway special use districts and the article ten jackson square landmark district . the project site is developed with a three story building constructed in 1907 with a building area of. 32,984ft!s. to date, the department has received 11 letters of support for the project at after packets for this hearing were published, planning staff received one additional letter of support for the project, which was forwarded to the commissioners. the department finds that the project is on balance consistent with the objectives and policies of the city's general plan. the department also finds the project to be necessary, desirable and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. the project will contribute to the economic vitality of the jackson square neighborhood by converting a rear open area on the project site from a conforming public parking lot use to a modestly scaled one story office building with surrounding landscape lighting that will support the existing adjacent office and retail uses

at 8 or 9 and 831 montgomery street and will not displace any displace any existing commercial or retail uses due to its location within the washington broadway special use district. existing nonconforming parking lot use proposed for removal would have required a conditional use authorization to continue to operate on a temporary basis. the project will allow for the introduction of a new building in the jackson square special use district that will support the area's distinctive mix of retail art and design uses without impacting the special historic character of the jackson square landmark district, whose boundaries are contiguous with a special use district. based on the findings contained within the case report, the department recommends approval of the project with conditions. as this concludes my presentation. unless there are any questions and the project team also has a brief presentation of the project. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is matt cerny and i'm with

with lovefrom lovefrom. i'm was founded in jackson square in 2019 and we're a creative collective. we're working to the highest standards across multiple design disciplines. we maintain an international reach and strongly believe that our presence in san francisco will further the city's reputation as a global hub for creativity and design. we like to think of ourselves as a small but mighty collective of 32 employees here in san francisco. so the team is largely composed of designers, architects, artists and writers . our work ranges from year product design contracts with large international companies to important pro bono projects. we're excited about our project , which seeks to expand our base of operations in a neighborhood with a rich history of creativity and innovation. the project before you seeks to construct a pavilion building in what is currently a parking lot at 100 columbus avenue, the parking lot at 100 columbus avenue is part of a multi-use site that includes a building on

the perimeter with retail use on the ground floor and residential use above. we are seeking a change of use of the parking lot to accommodate a pavilion building situated in passive landscaping that will function as a large meeting space for employees and visitors at our offices and studio on 809 and 831 montgomery street. the pavilion will also serve as a space for design reviews of large prototypes and models. with this project, we look forward to playing a role in the economic recovery of the neighborhood. we aim to help enliven the retail and restaurant spaces in and around 100 columbus avenue and to showcase jackson square as a high profile commercial and creative district for visitors and locals. we're excited about the ability to create new jobs. foster creativity and enrich jackson square's historic heritage. as a center for innovation and design. joseph spence of gibson dunn will speak more to the existing and proposed use of the lot and my colleague, design architect james mcgrath, will touch on the design of the project. thank you

for your time and we hope that you'll approve lapham's application for our conditional use authorization on. good afternoon commissioners. my name is joseph spence from gibson, dunn and crutcher. i am counsel for the project sponsor. i just want to briefly address the conditional use authorization requirement. as noted, the jackson square special use district does require a conditional use authorization for office uses at the ground floor. and because this proposed building will will be used as an office space and a conference space for lovefrom, it is considered a ground floor office. use the jackson square special use district. the intent of it is to preserve and enhance the retail in the district and we believe this project will do just that. the proposed building is going to be located behind the street frontage. so it's in

the parking lot behind the existing building and all the retail, the existing retail in the existing building will be maintained and preserved. in addition, it's going to bring additional foot traffic to the neighborhood, which will support the retail in the neighborhood as a whole. and so we believe it is entirely appropriate and in keeping with the requirements of the code. and we respectfully ask for your support. thank you all. hand it off to james mcgrath, who will briefly address the design of the building itself. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is james mcgrath. i'm the design architect and a team member at lovefrom. i've been with lovefrom for the past three years and previously i was a partner with foster and partners , both in the london studio and here in san francisco. the proposed design you see here is a single story brick, steel, glass and wood office building,

which has been explained that it supports the lovefrom studio by providing a large daylit meeting space for our design and presentation work process. the design is modest in scale. the top of the building is no higher than the first story of the existing 100 columbus building, and we've designed the pavilion building to be sympathetic to the neighborhood in both its proposed materials and its position within the courtyard. the next couple of views show the design in the context of the courtyard and the surrounding buildings. this shows the proposed passive landscaping of the space that was previously a hard surface parking lot and the parking that will be in here in the future will be bicycle parking for our team. members of our team. this you see here is the existing columbus avenue

entrance to the courtyard with a roller shutter gate. give two extra minutes. this is the existing columbus avenue entrance. sorry, this this is our proposed hinge gate design, which has no impact on the existing uses of the building. the gate maintains transparency and is in keeping with the neighborhood, both in its design and its materials. as we also propose to replace the existing solid roller shutter gate to jackson street entrance, a new hinge gate similar in design to the proposed columbus avenue gate. this gate will also be more transparent and again, the gate replacement will not affect the existing adjacent buildings . we're excited to be in jackson square and we look forward to further contributing to the neighborhood with a rich heritage of creative design. thank you very much for your time and we hope you will approve our application for conditional use. use authorization. thank you. thank you. we should open up public comment. members of the public if you care to come on up and if

you are calling in remotely, you need to press star three or raise your hand via webex. thank you, commissioners. my name is george ravel. i own a retail business on jackson street. 540 jackson so this project is taking place directly behind me. i showed up here today to speak on behalf of lovefrom and my support to it. it's an absolutely fantastic project through every step of the way, they've been absolutely excellent neighbors to work with, and i couldn't be happier that this project is taking place behind my retail store and in the neighborhood that i work in. so i hope you approve it as a person who's been on jackson street for five years now, really excited about it. thank you. hi, commissioners. my name is michael veloso. i'm a partner at jackson square financial, which is a financial advisory

firm located at 48 gold street, which is a building we own. i'm also the president of the jackson square merchants association and the jackson square historic district association. i've served on the board and remain in close contact with the barbary coast neighborhood association, whose boundaries include jackson square. and i'm a current board member of the downtown sf partnership, the cbd, whose boundaries include jackson square. i'm involved in in these multiple neighborhood organized sessions in jackson square, along with my business practice that is based there. and i'm deeply invested in the well being of the neighborhood, and i'm extremely supportive of love . gm's expansion that will allow them to form the base of their operations in the neighborhood. i believe that the proposed design is thoughtful. it's in keeping with and even enhancing the neighborhood's historic character. and i'm in strong support of love. fromm's desire change of use at 100 columbus converting what was a form, what is a parking lot to a landscaped area that contains an office or

a pavilion in my opinion, this project is well suited and desirable for the neighborhood. i encourage you to approve the conditional use and thank you for your time. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is eric haywood. i am the director of retail for the eames institute of infinite curiosity, a cultural nonprofit formed to protect and extend the legacy of america. designers charles and ray eames. one year ago, our organization had the opportunity to take over stewardship of william stout architecture books, a mainstay of the architecture and design community in san francisco for nearly 50 years. 35 of those years have found us at 804. montgomery street in jackson square. and as it happens, across the street from lovefrom new offices over the last 35 years, stout books has been an anchor in a neighborhood that used to be known and used to show up in tour guide tour books

and travel guides as the design district. it though most of the design businesses have long since gone within a block of our space is the former showrooms of major international design companies like herman miller. vitra kartell maharam and others now all sit empty. they're attended, tenanted now, now by mostly whatever. spiders make cobwebs. i've never known what those are. our hope. when we acquired stout books was to find partners with which to turn this illustrious neighborhood back into a global destination of architecture and design thinking . i felt very lucky to learn that not only was love from planning new headquarters across the street from us, but they also held this vision of revitalizing jackson square of creating a significant global magnet to this unduly deserted neighborhood. and so in my mind, what we're talking about is not really so much a change of use. it's a term that i've heard

here, but a resuming of use that love from is looking to accomplish, as it were, clicking the lights back on to the design district in jackson square, clicking on the lights sweeping the floor and putting out a fresh welcome mat to a design world that says welcome back to san francisco. i've spent my entire adult life in the fields of design and i know its landscape pretty well. if i were asked to name another design office of comparable prestige with such an authoritative voice in the world of design, with the reach and ability to create the sort of gravitational pull to jackson square, that lovefrom can, i would come up blank. there is no comparable office. this is an incredible moment for san francisco and jackson square . so council we councilors, commissioners, we fully support love firm's proposals and we hope you will too. good afternoon. my name is michael tusk and along with my

wife, we own katonah verdu oficina and we're in the process of opening up a gelateria down the street. and just like the rest of the folks that just spoke, we wholeheartedly support the project. we feel like it's both a necessary and beneficial for the neighborhood. we also feel the entire organization is civic minded countries, gorgeous, compassionate, supportive, even safety minded. and we feel like this project will help revitalize us. both jackson square and san francisco, when we had a choice to start our both a renovation of one of our restaurants which are in the middle of and two of our new businesses as we

definitely did it because we wanted to be in jackson square with the love from team and everybody else that is in jackson square. we're proud to call them our neighbors and look forward to seeing this project get underway. thank you. hello, my name is paul michelis. i own 530 jackson street, which is directly in front of the project . i just want to second everything that my neighbors have said. i have lived and worked in that neighborhood. my children were born there in that building and still live there for the last 26 years. and i've never been happier with anything coming into any of the neighborhood. i think it's the best neighborhood in san francisco, always has been. but but it's the best kept secret in the city. but doesn't need to be. i don't i don't think this

is just essential for jackson square. but i think it's essential for san francisco. so this is like two quite something from sports. this is like messi coming to america to play for the mls. thank you. okay seeing no additional members of the public coming forward in the chambers, let's go to our remote. caller oh, who just oh on their back. are you there? hello? yes, go ahead. hello, my fellow commissioners. thank you. my name is dana peterson and i really appreciate your time. um, i am the proprietor of postscript cafe market at 49 jackson street. i also own the building here and manage this building as well. i'm in. i am calling on behalf of support of

lovefrom and the 100 columbus street project. not only is 100 columbus a thoughtful and elegant design and their intention to honor the history and architecture of the buildings around it, they have not been forgotten. those buildings are still beautiful as well as this design that they put together. i ask that the commission to approve this project for the conditional use of the 100 100 columbus street projects. i feel it's necessary. incredibly desirable for our neighborhood and community of jackson square. i, i think. okay, last call for public comment again, if you're in the chambers, you need to come forward. if you're calling in remotely, you need to press star three or raise your hand via webex. seeing no additional requests to speak, commissioner's public comment is

closed and this matter is now before you. oh, what a great project. i'm super excited to support this today. so glad to hear so many positive voices again. i think commissioner murray started off the hearing talking about positive news that we're seeing and i feel like this is some positive news hopefully being made today in the commission. so very, very excited to support this project. i'll call on vice president moore and then commissioner koppell very excited to support this project. indeed, it brings a smile to my face if we are really looking for revitalization and positive affirmation, bringing designers and bringing architects and artists back to san francisco is we really would start where we are a city again. we are not just basically victims of something that happened to everybody else as well. i'm in full support. i really appreciate the thoughtful drawing package going down columbus street and staring into stupid parking lot. i'm sorry to be so verbal about my impression here was always a big question. why is this? there is a wonderful blog coming from broadway to a jackson and all of a sudden you add some car comes out and you're basically what is

going on here for you taking that step is wonderful, particularly setting it into a garden, into a landscape setting where you look through the gate and see the green is going to make it even more exciting. and tying the to the tying the building around the corner with access from jackson street is just fantastic. absolutely. i am in full support and i move to approve with conditions. second, did you want to speak to anything commissioner koppell great. okay commissioners, there is a motion that has been seconded to approve this matter with conditions on that motion. commissioner braun, a commissioner ruiz, a commissioner diamond high commissioner, imperial high. commissioner coppell high. commissioner moore high commissioner. president tanner high. so commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0. and just a reminder, we have the picnic next week, i believe, right? and so there's no hearing. we do there's, there are no items on your advanced calendar so we can cancel next week's the hearing. okay,

wonderful. we are adjourned. thank you. let's move a little closer over here. you will be able to participate in the program. perfect. we have seats over here

available for anybody that would like to be seated. all right, good morning. welcome. i'm micheal lambert and i'm proud to serve as your city librarian. it's wonderful to see all of you here and be in community with all of you here in the mission district today. i'm joined by the library commission. yes, thank you. [ applause ] let's move a little closer over here. you will be able to hear better and participate better in the program. we have seats over here available. all right, good morning, welcome. i'm micheal lambert. i'm proud to serve as your city librarian. it's wonderful to see all of you here and be in community with all of you in the mission district today. i'm joined by the library

commission. oh, yes. [ applause ] thank you. i'm joined by the library commissioner dr.lopez. come on up here dr.lopez. [ applause ] on behalf of the san francisco public library we'd like to welcome you to the historic mission branch for the kickoff of this construction project. i'd like to begin with our land acknowledgment. i'll pause for the translator. moving too fast. [translator speaking]

>> thank you. the area known as the unseated ancestral homeland. the people of the land have never seated, lost, or forgotten that responsibility as the caretakers of the place. >> okay.

>> we recognize that we benefit from living and working. the sovereign rights for people and. elders and relatives of the people.

>> thank you so much. before i welcome the supervisor to the microphone it would be fun to share fast facts with you about the library. >> the mission branch library is the very first neighborhood branch of the san francisco public library system. the first location was just a few blocks from here at 1109 olympia street.

>> the construction of the current building was funded by the industrialist and from donor. he donated $50,000 to construct the library. the location opened in december of 1915. this is one of the business i librairies.

so, this major renovation kicking off today, it's going to restore the historic firsthand door of the majestic library and upgrade the aminities to be worthy of expectations in 21st 21st century standards and service to the community. i'm excited we will restore the original entrance on 24th street. we will push out on the orange ally side for a new dedicated space. we'll have a new community room and more restrooms.

the renovated mission branch library is a model. this will be including solar panels, battery storage, also an upgraded heated and hvac system.

>> with this once in a generation we'll continue to be a neighborhood hub for another century and beyond. it's the pleasure to introduce our supervisor hillary a supporter of the library and loyal patron as well. [ applause ]

>> hello. thank you for being here on this exciting day. i just want to acknowledge how has been and lucky we are for district nine. it amazing. this is really a dream come true. to have a community room and space to have a fully resilient building for the days that are hotter and hotter for people. we have extra bathrooms for people in the neighborhood

that need them. this is the type of project that's exactly right for the neighborhood and such a beautiful and historic building it's perfect. so, i just wanted to give a few things. i wanted to start by recognizing and thanking suzanne. the executive director of the latino cultural district. [ applause ] >> representing the voice of the community and helping to

design you know, and make sure the priorities are respected and included in the project. also i'd like to recognize -- they will come up shortly. we are so lucky to have this world famous artist who is going to make an original piece for the building and it will capture the latino history and native-american history that makes it the special place it is. thank you for doing that.

>> i'd like to thank all of the folks in the city that prioritize the project. there is one finally after this. from the dpw. architect which will and engineering and incredible library staff. who consistency the only apartment the library commission and the friends of the library.

this was a team effort and one project we can feel proud of as san franciscans. >> finally finally, truly finally. i'd like to thank you for voting for the library preservation funds.

[ applause ] that vote is what made this project possibility. that vote is what make our librairies the jewel institutions they are in the city. thank you san franciscans. thank you. proximate cause. >> and now, it's my great pleasure to introduce carla

short. >> thank you. good morning everyone. thank you supervisor and also thank our supervisor librarian for hosting us today. >> it's a pleasure to be part of the gathering. >> the branch library is a true gem. we are excited to partner in the renovations. >> in collaboration with

library staff and community public works architect will reassert the his historical significance of the building more than a century years old and meet the modern day san francisco. >> in addition to architects they created landscape design and project and construction management services. i'd like to thank andrew who is here today leading the branch project team.

>> we are also pleased to work with sc as the contractor for the project. sc was a proven partner with the city and delivered successful project including the ambulance deployment facility for the san francisco fire department.

>> i'd like to give a big shout out to micheal lambert and his team. san francisco's public library system is a model for the rest of the nation with amazing resources at the main and neighborhood branches. >> ensuring access to information is the bed rook of our neighborhood. this is a big part of our mission. >> the mission branch renovation project is an

example of the commitment to not only maintaining and improving san francisco's vital and beloved public library system. thank you for hosting this public event. and now, i'd like to introduce rebecca, the library chief of branches. >> good morning, eve