tv Planning Commission SFGTV September 6, 2024 8:00pm-11:01pm PDT
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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 queued to speak. please speak clearly and slowly and if you care to state your name for the record, i will remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. also, i ask that we silence any mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings, and at this time i would like to take roll commission. president dimond here, vice president moore here, commissioner braun here. commissioner imperial here. commissioner. so here. commissioner williams here. and welcome, commissioner mcgarry. thank you. first on your agenda, commissioners, is consideration of items proposed for continuance items one, a and b
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for case numbers 2023. hyphen 003652c, u, and v are for the property at 3901 noriega street. conditional use, authorization and variance are proposed for continuance to september 19th, 2024. item two. case number 2024 hyphen 001579q8 200 capp street conditional use authorization is proposed for continuance to september 19th, 2024. item three, case number 2023 hyphen 007010qa at 1310 junipero serra boulevard. conditional use authorization is proposed for continuance to october 17th, 2024, and item four, case number 2015. hyphen 006356q. hyphen zero two at 336 pierce street. conditional use authorization is proposed for an indefinite continuance. members of the public. this is your opportunity to address the commission on any of these matters proposed for continuance only on the matter of continuance, you need to come forward. seeing none, public
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comment is closed and your continuance calendar is now before you. commissioners commissioner imperial, move to continue all items as proposed. second, thank you, commissioners, on that motion to continue items as proposed. commissioner mcgarry, high commissioner. so i commissioner williams i commissioner braun i commissioner imperial i commissioner moore i and commissioner president diamond i so moved commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0 placing us under your consent calendar. all matters listed here under constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the planning commission, and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote. 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 five case number 2024. hyphen 003483c089001 bush street. unit number 502 conditional use
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authorization item six. case number 2019 hyphen 007297qa at 2300 polk street. conditional use authorization item seven, case number 2024 hyphen 002929q at 737 irving street. conditional use authorization and item eight, case number 2024 hyphen 005931 pca for the 2024 code. corrections ordinance planning code and building code. code amendments. members of the public. this is your opportunity to address the commission and request that any of these items be pulled off of consent and considered later today. again, you need to come forward. seeing none public comment is closed and your consent calendar is now before you. commissioners commissioner imperial move to approve all items. second, thank you, commissioners, on that motion to approve your consent calendar, commissioner mcgarry i commissioner. so i commissioner
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williams, i commissioner braun i commissioner imperial i commissioner more i and commission president dimond i so moved commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0 placing us under commission matters for item nine. the land acknowledgment. the 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 lan, 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. 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. item ten consideration of
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adoption draft minutes for july 18th, 2024, members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commissioners on their minutes. seeing none public comment is closed and your minutes are now before you commissioners commissioner braun, move to adopt the minutes. second. thank you. commissioners on that motion to adopt the minutes, commissioner mcgarry i commissioner. so i commissioner williams i commissioner braun i commissioner imperial i commissioner moore i and commission president dimond i so moved commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0. item 11 commission comments and questions. i'm going to start, first i want to welcome our new commissioner, sean mcgarry, i will tell you that i have considered it a privilege and an honor to serve for the last five years, and i hope that you feel the same way. welcome thank you. commissioner and with that, i want to let everyone know that
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this is my last hearing. after much thought, i have declined to accept the mayor's offer to renominate me for another term. as many of you know, i have two brand new baby grandsons in la, one is five weeks old and one is three days old. and i want the flexibility to help out their parents. i have no intention of being the granny nanny, or of moving to la. i absolutely love living in san francisco, but i do want the flexibility to be back up and to be a presence in their lives, and that is inconsistent with the workload and the weekly schedule of this commission. for the past 40 years, it's been my delight to juggle career, kids, community and public service, and the last five years i've been able to prioritize public service by serving on this commission, and it's been such an honor to do s.
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but for the next little while, i'm going to prioritize my family. so a number of thank you's, first of the mayor, for having nominated me several times and to the board for having affirmed my seat on this commission. second, i will shout out to the tech department, for allowing me to hear what's going on. as most of you know, i suffer from significant hearing loss, and without the tech department, in conjunction with jonah's request to come up with better and better devices, i wouldn't have otherwise been able to hear, and therefore i couldn't have participated. i want to thank director hillis, miss waddy, and all of the staff, for the conviction of their positions. the incredible analysis that they produce in the staff reports for us every week, and for answering my never ending questions on every matte, jonas, your skill at ensuring that this commission runs smoothly is just not to be
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believed. thank you for all your work and a special thank you to the public, for your letters. for your phone calls, and for showing up. it's your participation that makes this process what it is. and finally, to my fellow commissioners for the respect that shown to each other and for the willingness and the openness, to other people's opinions before making decisions, it's been one of the joys and the hallmarks of this commission over the past five years. and i have truly enjoyed that. i will miss it all. especially at a time when we're working so hard to use every land use two tool we have in the box to grow our economy, create housing opportunities for everybody, attract visitors, and a special shout out to meet the needs of families. thank you al.
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okay, vice president moore, commissioner dimond couldn't say it better. she will be a hard act to follow, and i will personally very much miss her. she comes with experience. she comes with a courageous voice, and she comes with a loving personality that cares. and i do understand that there are times in our lives when we need to make a decision, and i truly and deeply respect her to choose a personal path in her life after she has given a lot to the community and a lot to this commission. i wish you the best. you will be missed, particularly her experience and mature voice is definitely needed to balance it out and we often come from different positions, but we deeply respect what we do and we consult with each other in a caring way to deliver the best we can. here as president, as vice president, thank you so much. i will call you by your first name. you will be seriously missed and i wish you
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all the best. but we will not lose touch because we know each other. thank you. so lovely. thank you. commissioner braun, first, i just want to say welcome. commissioner mcgarry. welcome to the commission, president diamond sue, i've always been so impressed by your your commitment to service for the city. and i know that serving on this commission, you've said is, you know, has been a lifelong dream. and something i know you've taken very seriously. and so you're definitely i'm definitely going to miss you, and i'm going to i hopefully we'll still continue to have great conversations about, you know, what is best for san francisco and debating that. and i've always appreciated that dialog that has been possible as you've served as president. so thank you so much. i really appreciate your service. thank you so much for those wonderful comments, commissioner imperial commissioner diamond, i will
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definitely miss you. i deeply respect you and the knowledge that you have brought here in the planning commission. i truly enjoy the dialogs that we have, the debates that we have, and although there are times that we don't see things eye to eye, i. i'm very proud of what the commission can bring, to this city. and you're a big contribution to that as well. and so four years or five years at this point seems like long, but it felt like yesterday, and i wish you could have continued, but i'm very happy for you and spending time with your family, and you're really deserve it. so i will miss you so much. thank you. so moved. thank you so much, let's see, commissioner williams. thank you. sue. i, you're going to be deeply missed on this commission, you know,
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your experience and your knowledge, nothing gets past you, and, you know, i appreciate that. and, i wish you all the. well, you know, the best for you and your family. i, you know, i wish, like, like like. commissioner, i wish you didn't have to go because i think there's going to be a big hole in the commission, but having said that, i know that you have to do what you have to do, you know? and so, i just want to say, thank you. i respect i respect you very much. and you know, thank you for serving our city. and, just thank you. thank you. that means a great deal to me, commissioner. so president diamond, it's been an honor to have this onboarding experience
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with you. you have shown your warm welcome and extremely detail oriented to make sure i know every button to push. so i really appreciate that. and i really wish you for the best. helping your daughter to raise two grand kids. it's probably harder than serve on the planning commission. and, we'll be here to help. offering nanny services if you need to. i am offering. i would like to go to la. but i really, echo with my fellow commissioners sensibility is your unique expertise in your decades long service, both in your professional business and in your volunteer capacity for our city, the land use subject matter expertise that you offer to our commission, it will be really, really missed, she had
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caught every single typo, every single missing paragraph that we have in the last wee hours. i am just so appreciated and i hope that we all together kind of, you know, carry on the torch. so, you never left us. and i wish you feel the best and enjoy your family. thank you so much, commissioner. so, vice president, vice president moore, i wanted to, actually welcome mr. mcgarry, because in all of the focus on, president diamond, we need to wholeheartedly welcome you to this group, it is not an easy job and will be in the trenches, and we'll just do what we need to do. and welcome to the club. thank you. yes. oh,
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commissioner. imperials thank you, president diamond, welcome, what's your last name? sorry. mcgarry. mcgarry and welcome commissioner mcgarry. and, again, this is, we were looking forward, this is a very robust. we usually have a robust conversation here, and commission, i'm looking forward to hear your contribution here as well, but i also want to bring up, you know, a subject matter that i know we're going to be in the recess soon, and i know that the planning department has been thinking of putting out informational hearings when it comes to the housing element, especially in the expanding housing choice program. and so i thought that and also we also received a letter from the from one of the
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coalition reps of coalition talking about whether we can have informational hearings about the update on expanding housing choice, and particularly and this is also for me, i think we've brought up the issues during the expanding housing choice hearings, the issue on the small business and at the same time, the issues of the tenant displacement, also in the terms of demolitions as well. so i'm hoping that the that the commission, we can put it in our calendar in september about these two topics and to do it in a separate forum, in a separate hearings, because let's also in terms of small business, i think there are things that we have not thoroughly, have a hearing about it. and we would like to have more updates on that as to what the department is actually doing for the protection of the
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small businesses, and also in terms of tenant displacement in the in the subject of the demolition as well. so, so that's i hope that that's something that the commission we can put in in the month of september, they're proposing in september 1926. but i also would like to hear what what our calendar would look like in september. i want to give one other shout out. and that's to the city attorney's office, we get incredible legal advice, and i have so much respect for the legal guardrails that they provide with us so that we can, design conditions proposed legislation with confidence, that we're staying within the law. so thank you to both kristen and austin. if there's nothing further, commissioners, if you would indulge me for one moment to also echo the words of your fellow commissioners commission president diamond,
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your thoughtful and calm voice was much appreciated in this chamber. so thank you and wishing you all the best in your in the next chapter in your life. thank you so much. department matters item 12 director's announcements. thank you. jonas, i don't have any director's announcements, but i would like to use this time to also, echo the, just appreciation. tremendous appreciation for you, commissioner diamond first, and foremost, i just really want to appreciate and thank you for how respectful you've been of staff, staff has a lot on their plates, and i can tell you from the, like, most sincere place that staff really appreciates, the kindness and the effort with which you reach out to them individually. so much so that they're not put on the spot so that they can prepare thoughtful responses to the very valid and thoughtful questions that you've brought up. so i really wanted to thank you for that, we also always know, as a result of that that you actually read our packets because sometimes it feels like we spend a lot of
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time writing things that no one ever reads, so we always know that with you, i know that you have gotten all the way through them and you know everything that's in there. so i think that's really meaningful also to staff, and, and last lastly, on sort of a personal note, it's been really meaningful to me how much it's clear that you really care about good government. we may disagree on policy matters from time to time, but you really do always bring us back and hold us accountable for being, sort of good, good governance and really caring about our customers and the citizens of san francisco's experience working with us and so that's something that's very near and dear to my heart. and so i appreciate how much you bring it back to that and remind us of how, how important that i. so for all of that, we will miss you, your your shoes are too, too big to be filled, and you will be missed, but also an exciting chapter, for you to enjoy your grandbabies. thank you for those wonderful comments. i will say, i know that every commissioner up here
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reads the staff reports. i'm just the biggest. i'm just the biggest nudge. right. we know you read our staff reports, so we appreciate that. thank you, and then and then lastly, sean, welcome. we're really excited to have you as well, commissioner mccarry, and clearly, you've got big shoes to fill here. so we're really excited to work with you in this next phase when one when one door closes, another opens. so welcome. and then just to follow up on commissioner imperial's request, i have not been in the loop on the, exact schedule, but i will for sure relay it back to the housing choice team and relay your request for a september hearing. sure. okay. item 13, review of past events at the board of supervisors and the board of appeals. there was no historic preservation commission hearing yesterday, good afternoon, commissioners. aaron star, manager of legislative affairs. thank you, commissioner diamond, for your work. we've truly appreciated your voice up there. you will be missed. welcome. commissioner mcgarry. i hope you find it to be some good crack on
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the planning commission. i doubt it, but, anyway, so this week, the land use committee considered the landmark designation of the rainbow flag at harvey milk plaza by gilbert baker. the hpc heard this item on may 15th and recommended approval to the board of supervisors, during the land use hearing, there were about a half dozen public commenters, all in support of the designation. supervisor mandelman made the entire presentation and went over a revision that specifies the flag should fly at full staff for 24 hours. a day. this amendment was approved unanimously by the committee supervisor. preston asked to be added as co-sponsor, after which the ordinance was recommended unanimously to the full board. then the full board. this week, the mayoral appointment for amy campbell was adopted, as was the mayoral appointment for sean mcgarry. so as you can see, he's here, and then the landmark designation for the rainbow flag at harvey milk plaza passed its first street. and that's all i have for you today. i don't see
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the zoning administrator, and i have no report from him, so we can move on commissioners to general public comment at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission, except agenda items with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. when the number of speakers exceed the 15 minute limit, general public comment may be moved to the end of the agenda. hi. welcome commissioner mcgarry and commissioner president diamond bon voyage. good luck. maybe you'll come back when the babies go to kindergarten. so anyway, that's something to think about. good afternoon. i'm georgia swedish, welcome again, can i have the overhead, please? sfgov on the computer. oh, there it is. so i want to put this on the big screen. this is what i sent to you on monday for general public comment. this is, my commentary about alterations that are
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demolitions, which i've been talking about for a very long time, this one, you can see the before, during and after it's currently for sale for $19 million. and my problem with this is that there were no demo calcs in the record anywhere, either on the pim or at the dbi records. and it's still for sale. it's been for sale for quite a while, so i don't know what the story is with that, but i think it's part of the problem that happened in the early years of section 317, where there was a lot of lax or scant oversight, and that's a problem, so as i said, oh, and the permit was only valued at $650,000, which is another issue that i've always had. this really got me started because when i see these alterations that were demolitions, they had these really low permit values and it just always amazed me. and it's in d7 and it's seven over 7000ft!s. so here's the other one. and this is actually now they said it's off market. this is also $19,000. excuse me,
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$19,000 i wish $19 million. and it originally sold in 2013 for $1.8 million. and this is 9000ft!s and it's in d8 original house, which was third bay tradition. you can see it on, if you go to the sf excuse me, redfin, you can see the original house, which is very interesting. and as i said, it was originally 3200ft!s. it's nw 9700ft!s. both of these had horizontal and vertical expansions with facade change. this one two. no demo calcs, no demo calcs anywhere on the pym or in the plans on dbi records. that's concerning. i think now there's greater scrutiny, but it's still a problem. the clarifications have been fixed, but the demo calcs are still not stringent enough and here's why. this is a current project
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underway right now. it's demo calcs were very interesting. i can't have time to talk about that, but i will. some other point. here's another picture of it. okay so the first one was july 3rd. note the two sides, a little bit of pieces of the original house left. it's only one piece left there on the left side. and here's the original house. it's a horizontal vertical expansion with facade change. and this to me is why the demo calcs need to be adjusted. if they'd been adjusted, as i suggested in my letters, this thing would have been a demolition. so thank you very much. and that's it. good luck. eileen bogan, i'm here representing the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. first commissioner dimond, not goodbye, farewell. we hope to
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keep in touch with you. thank you for your service. excited about your new life with your two grandchildren, here specifically to welcome, commissioner mcgarry. and we sort of met at the rules committee, thank you. and we look forward to working with you in the future. and even though commissioner campbell is not here, a welcome to her when she shows up. and in case commissioner so and williams feel left out. welcome although you're not, you know, new new you're sort of still you've been here a while but again thank you for your service. and commissioner mcgarry, thank you for what's going to be a heavy lift. but thank you for taking this on. thank you. good afternoon. also welcome to newest commissioners and
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farewell to outgoing commissioner sue dimond. cynthia gomez, senior research analyst, unite here. local two. so i've been at local two for nine years, and in that capacity i've been in this commission before, this commission countless times, and i can't remember having to deal with the situation like the one i'm having to deal with now. so most of us, and i'm pretty sure most of all of you would not consider a $3,200 a month hotel room with no common space, no kitchen, no shared space to be affordable housing, but, that's exactly what the operators of the bay hotel on eighth street would like to have happen, and they don't even want to get you to for you all to get a chance to weigh in. three and a half years ago, the operator of the bay illegally converted three of its floors to housing. this was in violation of the planning code. enforcement staff got wind of this. the hotel was told to stop. they ignored that, kept issuing new leases. anyway, and they were allowed the chance
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to legalize this illegal conversion. they submitted plans that weren't in compliance with the code. they were told their plans weren't in compliance. they blew deadlines to submit code compliant plans. and then this process continued in a kind of lather, rinse, repeat. and during that whole time, any fines that they were entitled to have assessed against them were frozen. and this process continued for more than two years. an outside observer would be forgiven for seeing this as an attempt to game the system and avoid fine enforcement. this went on until this year, when the hotel now is claiming that they're going to rent out 56 of these rooms at $3,200 a month. again, no common space, no open space, and they want this to be counted as a quote unquote affordable housing project. they want their approvals to be granted by right and without intervention, they might get their wish. so we have set up a meeting with the planning director. we've hired an attorney. we're fighting this on
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behalf of our members because our members aren't just hotel workers, they're city residents. and they've been insulted. they've been insulted by having their jobs taken away, by being told that a hotel room at this rate, is supposed to be considered good enough for them as far as affordable housing is concerned, and they're being insulted by watching their employer violate the law without any repercussions. so i remember just last week here in this commission, asked some very thoughtful and thorough questions about city residents and their access to affordable housing programs and so our members are hoping that there will be an opportunity for you all to hear this project and hear this case so that you can ask those kinds of tough questions again, and so that you can fight for them. thank you. okay. last call for general public comment. seeing none general public comment is closed. and we can move on to your regular calendar for item 14. case number 2024. hyphen
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005624 pca. and oh, i'm sorry. hold on through the chair. if we may go back to our continuance calendar, we failed to allow the acting zoning administrator continue. item one b. liz if you could. i'm sorry. yes, on behalf of the zoning administrator will continue that item to september 19th. thank you. now we can move on to your regular calendar for item 14, case number 2024, hyphen 005624 pca and map for the central neighborhoods. large residents sued and corona heights. large residents sued planning code and zoning map amendments. thank you. audrey maloney, planning department staff for our new commissioner center, commissioner sean mcgeary. i am, a staff member with the legislative affairs division. and i will probably be seeing you very often at this commission. before i give the
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staff presentation, i do have some new resolutions that have one small drafting error. these were distributed to you all via email, but those are hard copies for you as well, and then i believe we have calvin ho from supervisor mandelman's office who will give a presentation on behalf of the sponsor. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is calvin ho. i am a legislative aide for supervisor mandelman. the ordinance before you seeks to accomplish a few goals. firstly, following the redrawing of supervisorial districts in 2022, coal valley was added to district eight. we want to expand the central neighborhoods sud to include this neighborhood so that all district eight or all of district eight is covered by the sud. secondly, due to the similarities between the central neighborhoods and corona heights as hoods, we would like to delete the latter and instead have the central neighborhoods should uniformly cover the district. this expansion will discourage the construction of. i'm going to interrupt for one
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second. can you slow down just a bit? yes. sorry about that, so secondly, due to the similarities between the central neighborhoods and corona heights suds, we would like to delete the latter and instead have, central neighborhoods should uniformly cover the district. this expansion will discourage the construction of new monster homes in coal valley, while also making it harder to construct these homes in parcels covered by the corona heights sud. now for some background, in 2017, former supervisor jeff sheehy established the corona heights. large residents sued after hearing concerns from residents about the construction of monster homes in the neighborhood. in 2022, supervisor mandelman established the central neighborhoods large residents sud to address the issue of monster homes throughout the rest of district eight. these two suits are very similar in nature, and seek to accomplish the same goal of discouraging the creation of monster homes. they both contain the same purpose statement, which is to protect and enhance existing neighborhood character, encourage new infill housing at compatible densities, and scale,
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and provide for thorough assessment of proposed large scale residences that could adversely impact the area and affordable housing opportunities. there were, however, some differences in how they went about achieving this goal. the corona heights large residents study required siu authorization if the building, not unit, went beyond 3000 square foot limit, it did not set a maximum cap on the unit or building size. central neighborhoods. large residents should establish a threshold of 3000ft!s, or 1.25 f.a.r per uni, above which siu authorization was required. it also included a cap of 4000ft!s on unit size, ad regulated the unit size, not the building size. although the mechanisms were different between the two suds, the overall goals are the same. 2023. following the passage of senate bill 423, supervisor mandelman worked with planning staff and the mayor's office to include amendments to these suds. as part of the constraints reduction ordinance. the coah requirements under both suds will sunset on december 31st, 2024, and after this date, i'm going to interrupt again. yes. you don't have a time limit and you're it's a very detailed
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presentation and we really want to get it all. so just slow down a bit. so sorry commissioners okay, so after this date, no expansion or new construction of a residential building or dwelling unit shall exceed 3000ft!s will be allowed, except for the expansions of less than 15% over the last ten years, that is my presentation, commissioners. and i'll be present for questions, i'll turn it back to audrey. okay thank you. calvin. again. audrey maloney, planning department staff, as mr. ho already stated, the proposed ordinance that's in front of you today would amend both our planning code and our zoning map to expand the boundaries of the central neighborhoods. large residence, special use district, or sud, and apply its controls to all of the lots within the sud, rather than where they apply right now, which is just rh zoned lots. it would additionally delete the corona heights large residence
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sud and as a result merge it into the central neighborhoods large residence sud. i won't go too detailed into the background, since mr. ho already did so, but just to reiterate that the original sud was passed in april of 2022 when that proposed ordinance was in front of the planning commission in late 2021, the large home controls would have applied to all rh districts citywide, not just those in district eight. at that time, the commission voted to disapprove the ordinance, and they also asked the sponsor to focus these controls on areas of the city that actually need them, as well as looking into tenant protections and ways to encourage density. supervisor mandelman did end up taking these into consideration and as a result, created the sud that you see as proposed to expand before you today, over the past two and a half years, the staff responsible for implementing the sud have noted significant
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successes in curbing the size of large single family home expansions. despite 15 projects proceeding with applications for a cu to exceed the size limits, many others opted to stay below the threshold and incorporate an adu instead. that being said, we remain a little bit skeptical about whether these adus will be initially rented out as separate units. as you know, we have no control over what a property owner does with their extra unit in their home, and additionally, once the objective standards through sb 423 become effective on january 1st, we also speculate that that 3000 square foot hard cap may not effectively encourage increasing density. there's nothing in the proposed ordinance that will incentivize the addition of adus or other units, as there was with the cu process that the planning commission had the review over in the sud as it was originally created. all of that
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said, the department generally supports the purpose of this central neighborhoods large residence study, which is to encourage new infill housing at compatible densities and scale, and to curb the development of large single family residences. the department agrees that the projects seeking to expand their already large units without increasing their density should be discouraged. we also agree that generally, the size of a proposed unit is a sensible indicator of cost, but it's imperative that the city doesn't simply curtail the size of units. we need to be encouraging the addition of moderately sized units in what is otherwise a fairly low density, but yet high resource part of our city. as such, the department recommends that the commission adopt a recommendation for approval with modifications. we have three modifications we're recommending to you today. the first is to not include accessory garage space in the calculation of gross floor area. this was actually something we recommended in the original study. the sponsor took our suggestion and in the
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implementation in the last two and a half years, we've seen it doesn't really have the effect we'd hoped. and in fact can be used to game the square footage calculations. the second is to allow one dwelling unit in a project to be up to 4000ft!s. if the project also adds a dwelling unit of at least 800ft!s. again, we're hoping that this will be something that encourages increases in density once the objective standards become effective. on january first. and lastly, we are requesting that we specify, for the purposes of calculating a units gross square footage in multi-unit buildings that shared spaces not be included. this is to help make it easier for staff in multi-unit buildings to not have to try to figure out how to divide up shared spaces when determining whether they've reached their cap for their maximum square footage. so with that, i'm available for any questions, as is mr. ho. thank you. okay. with that, we should open up public comment. members
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of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this item. again, you need to come forward. hi, georgia. again, i don't know. hello. commissioner mcgarry received my letter that i sent in to the commission secretary, he was made aware of all of the correspondence, so he got a copy of it, so i don't have to give him this copy that i brought today, unless. would you like. would you like the copy i brought today? okay, good. i'll try to remember what i wrote. okay. i pretty much said everything i wanted to say in that in that memo, and i think i think, mrs. maloney wrote a really good memo because she broadened it out to look at everything. i don't agree with the 4000 and, square foot thing to get the 800 square foot unit. as i laid out in the memo, i gave some examples of why that doesn't work. 363 jersey, the one you had in april and the one that i showed the information on. i mean, i even showed that today that everson project that
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started at 3200ft!s, and it went to 9700ft!s. that's crazy. especially when we heard miss gomez talking. what she talked about. i mean, it's all connected as you all know, i think that the staff wanting to encourage moderately sized units is a good thing. and that's why i talk about the democrats being on a parallel track. if the demo calcs are adjusted, maybe it'll shift the paradigm, maybe it'll shift the paradigm, maybe people won't remove all of the house or most of the house and pretend they're doing an alteration and they'll start with a 1600 square foot house. think of the typical san francisco house throughout the city, one level over garage. they'll take that garage and they'll put a unit in there. it's just as reasonable to expect that could happen as somebody would take a 4000 square foot house and put a unit
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in and rent it out to somebody's brother or sister. it's not likely, if you're going to spend 4 to $9 million on a house that you're going to rent out an 800 unit square foot unit, or even a 1200 square foot unit, you put your gym equipment down there. whatever you put your media room down there, you put whatever thing you have that was, to me, a representative of the income inequality that we see in this city now, in those rooms, i think that's it. i really appreciated this memo. i appreciated the comments on sb 423. and any time that's called out, that's a good thing, because sb 423 and the way it was imposed on san francisco and no one else is really appalling and very unfair. it should never, ever, ever have happened. and i don't understand why we're being punished for something when you've got all the housing
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in the pipeline that this commission has worked so hard to approve over the years, and i guess that's it. thanks a lot. have a great summer break. september 12th. thank you. it's nice to be here. my name is ellen friedman and i'm a resident of coal valley, and i've been a resident there for over 35 years. i raised my kids there and i love the neighborhood. and since we've moved to the neighborhood, we've seen enormous changes, specifically with the last few years and the explosion of monster homes. specifically on belgrave avenue. but really all around the neighborhood. and as a result, what we've also seen is the increase in housing prices and rental, rental units
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and the loss of diversity of people that live in that neighborhood. when we moved in, it was mostly teachers, public servants, nonprofit community leaders, and most of them have left the neighborhood because they can't afford to stay. so this is really important. this issue about, capping the development of monster homes. so i do support the goal of the city to encourage more moderately priced housing and infill of current residential neighborhoods. the building of these large homes does not advance these goals. i can't see it. it hasn't happened in our neighborhood and it doesn't allow the city to benefit from the diversity of residents income and public engagement that we need for our city to thrive. so i do support the ordinance and urge its passage. i do not support the expansion of the, square footage to 4000. it's really hard for me to understand how that's going to
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benefit the diversity of housing that we need and support, more moderately priced homes. i would also like to suggest that the commission consider an additional special use fee on all homes over 3000ft!s in high resource neighborhoods in order to compensate the city for the increased services that some of these homes require in terms of utilities and the decrease in the diversity in our neighborhoods. and perhaps that fee could be applied to supporting, low income and more moderately income housing. i would like to extend my thanks to supervisor mandelman for, really being available to talk about this issue and his strong support for the need for diversity in our neighborhoods. so thank you. hello, commissioners. my name is
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mark lamborghini. i live in cole valley at 1254 stanyan street, and i just wanted to speak in favor of, supervisor mandelman's ordinance to limit, you know, single unit dwellings to 3000ft!s, and there's kind of three issues that i see. one, of course, is the neighborhood character, preserving as much as possible the neighborhood character. particularly in terms of smaller, smaller homes. second is the affordability issue, as the homes are increased in size, it, it greatly increases the cost of housing. one example is that, 89 belgrave, which is up the street from us, which has seen the building of a number of monster homes, the homes, the previous homes sold for 2.5 million in
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2012, which is still high, but, the after the demolition and the new the new home sold for 22 million. so that was a 1010 times increase in the cost of that property. and there are there are proposals to do more of this in cole valley, on standing street itself that we have, a developer who wants to, you know, expand to build a monster home. so it does decrease affordability. the third thing that i think it must do, you know, according to economics, is it's got to increase the land cost, the land prices, if you can, if a developer knows they can buy a $1.5 million home, demolish it and build a $20 million home that land cost has to be going up because of these homes in cole valley, especially on belgrave, but also on other streets. so i just see three issues neighborhood, character,
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affordability and increasing the land cost in cole valley. so i would support supervisor mandelman's, expansion of the sud to cole valley and also limiting, these large dwellings, two 3000ft!s, not 4000ft!s. so thank you. i'm gary peterson. i also live on stanyan street. you know, we have such unique neighborhoods in san francisco where we're fortunate and people are attracted to them, and that's why they move in. i just feel that if you come into a neighborhood, you were most likely attracted by its unique qualities and what the neighborhood has to offer. so coming in and tearing down a house and building these homes is taken away from that neighborhood character, you kno,
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mark and i and some of our neighbors, we've all we've remodeled our homes in the last years, and luckily, everybody around us has been very tasteful and respectful in what they did with their homes. they they honor the original style of the home, and we're respectful of their neighbors. we actually were able to remodel our home and double the square footage just staying within the footprint. so i think people, if they want to expand their home remodel, modernize it, you know, they have the right to do it. but i think with a clever architecture, they can be respectful of the neighborhood and maintain the contour and the quality and the character of the neighborhood. so i'm all in support of the expansion of this. supervisor mandelman's, thing here. so, hopefully we can
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protect this neighborhood and maintain the quality that it has. thanks a lot. okay, last call for public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed, and this matter is now before you commissioners. thank you, i'll start us off here, i'm focused primarily on staff's three recommendations. and the first and the third seem pretty easy to me. they reflect staff's experience on how they review and implement. and they need these in order to be able to continue to review and process in a sensible fashion, the second one, as we've heard, is more controversial, and, you know, i hear all of the neighborhood requests for preservation of neighborhood character, a term, by the way, hcd has told us we're not supposed to use anymore. and i
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recognize them that we have any number of levers that we can try to pull in order to, increase the amount of housing and try to keep it affordable and that we're experimenting, and supervisor mandelman is experimenting with this particular 3000 square foot cap, but i'm equally, affected by the fact that we need to increase the density in these neighborhoods, this is a pretty high resource neighborhood, and we need to find ways to encourage people to add, good sized adus, not the 300 square foot studios that we sometimes see that are, it's really hard to believe those are ever going to be rented out, but 800ft!s is a can be a family size two bedroom unit. and while i recognize that, you know, some of them may not be rented out by the current owner, but they may be rented out by a subsequent
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owner, they could be used for adult children, which seems like a very likely scenario. they could be used for in-laws, that i am intrigued by staff's suggestion, and i think it's worth you know, i, i would make the trade off, and i think that staff's recommendation that we allow people to go to 4000, but only in return for building an 800 square foot adu is a really sound. way to understand the situation. and see if we can actually get more useful sized infill housing. so i would be in support of the ordinance with the three recommendations. commissioner imperial, thank you, president dimond, i support the, you know, the original legislation by supervisor mandelman. and, you know, we we've seen many cases here where a demolition or a tantamount demolition of a single family home which is being maximized,
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that is twice of the size. and that affects the market. when we're looking into the single family home market as well. in looking into this staff analysis and i appreciate this, the staff really put a good analysis on this, and looking into the racial social equity analysis, there is a statement here that says at 3000 square foot in san francisco, it's not a notably large and of course, i think we can, we know what a 3000ft!s lok like. and it does, it is seem large. so i am actually baffled with that. with the recommendation number two, and i understand i think what the what we're you know, i also support, in a way i would support a recommendation that's allowing up to 3000ft!s, in addition of 800 square foot. i the 4000
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square foot seems to be very large, a single family home. and, i don't think it will serve as to what the original legislation is trying to do, so and i also agree with, you know, because we have also kind of like the goals here to increase density and to add up another unit. and in the commission we have done that. so many times, but we're always negotiating on the, on the, on the second unit, what it looks like, i would, you know, i support i mean, i would support recommendation number two if the, you know, if the maximize maximum, maximum size is 3000 square foot, and, and i think i get the logic. what why you're trying to do 4000 square foot. because that's kind of like the cap of the regional large size. and i think that you know, i, i think i understand
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the rationale in that, but i think in terms of the spirit of the legislation, which is to, you know, pretty much limit the master homes that we're trying to do. i think, you know, i think that's something that we should align with. i do have a question on number three in terms of the calculation of the gross square footage in multi-unit buildings and shared spaces shall not be included, where will that calculation go if they will not be included? it's a unique situation for this sud, because it's something where we're talking about the units gross square footage for the cap. so it doesn't that shared space doesn't necessarily need to go anywhere. because of the fact that the limit here is 3000ft!s per unit. so we really are just concerned with the independent living space. if there's a shared stairwell that isn't calculated into the total for this purpose, that's that's
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fine, so in terms of shared, so we're pretty much calculating just the livable units, the independent living space. correct. so for example, the corona heights sud does calculate the entire building square footage when it's looking at a cap. but the central neighborhoods sud has always looked at the individual unit and that's what's made it hard for staff in multi-unit buildings to determine how to calculate that shared space, how to divide it up. thank you. so in staff recommendation, i support one and three. unless we, we change the number to up to 3000ft!s. so that's where i'm at. i hope to hear what other commissioners say as well. thank you, commissioner braun. yes, you know, i'm i'm in favor in general with the spirit of this, of, you know, creating this hard cap of 3000ft!s and making thisa much more objective standard, we have had to navigate the
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conditional use authorization process for larger units, and i think we've done a good job as a commission in getting people to add additional units, but in some ways, i feel like that was, just sort of a trade off that came from the proposals coming into the conditional use authorization, so i want to explore recommendation two and a little bit more detail in a second, but i first have some questions or recommendations of 1 in 3. so, on recommendation one to not include accessory garage space in the calculation of gross floor area. i'm curious, i just want to make sure that, you know, to my mind, i might be misunderstanding some of this, but to my mind, there's a possibility that in a way, the unit is now getting even bigger. if the garage space is not being incorporated into the unit calculation. so now it's 3000fts on top of the garage. so is that is that an accurate understanding the way this math would now work? you know, previously the garage would have
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been included in that 3000. yes. it could be done either way. right. so in the situation where you already have a garage, let's say you have an attached garage right now and you were applying to expand your home under today's law for the sud that garage counts against you. unless you're trying to expand into that garage, that's what we were hoping would happen with this, is that people, instead of trying to expand the physical building envelope, would say, we don't really need a two car garage. let's actually just expand our livable space into the garage area because it won't count. it's already counted in our total living space, so it won't be considered an expansion because it's already included. the result, unfortunately, was especially in multi-unit buildings, when there might be a two car garage, or there might only be a one car garage or a garage space. parking lot, parking garage with multiple spaces. the, smaller unit might
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all of a sudden be designated as the entire garage space goes towards that unit, or even the larger of the garage spaces goes towards that unit, so that the larger unit on the property that might be proposing expansion as well doesn't have that counted against them. we don't normally count garage space when we're counting gross floor area for other purposes. in planning applications. it was an experiment with this sud. but you are right, commissioner, that for the purposes of this sud, because we're saying garage spaces wouldn't count. that's what we're proposing here. it could expand someone's allowable gross floor area if they already had a garage. and they are not wanting to expand their living space into that garage, i see. so then that what that leads me to wonder is, this is where i just don't know the ins and outs of the planning code. maybe as well as i should, but what are the limitations on making sure
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that somebody doesn't come in with a very large garage, in addition to their 3000 square foot space? it seems like that previous control would have had an incentive to keep the garage at a modest size. but, are there other controls that would place limitations on that parking maximums? yes, we for sure have parking maximums throughout the city, so that's already a control that's in place, so yeah. so as long as we have that in that in place, then i'm comfortable with recommendation one. but i want to make sure i understood a little bit better. and sorry i didn't send these questions ahead of time, getting in the weeds as always, on recommendation number three. i'm i'm comfortable with the spirit of this recommendation, to not include shared spaces in the calculation. and i heard what you said about how in one of the districts, the shared spaces already were not included in the calculation of the unit sizes, i'm just want to double check to make sure. can this i want to
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make sure there isn't there aren't big holes in this that it can be gamed where now there is something being designated as a shared space that is quite large, but realistically being used by, you know, one of the units. so i guess i'm just looking for reassurance that that wouldn't be the case with this. i'm happy to chime in, you know, i think we look at this too, where people could pick it apart. you know, i think storage space is the only thing, you know, behind a garage. storage space would be the only thing, that, like, right now, again, this is part of the reason we're asking to exempt it is sometimes there are these spaces that are clearly discontiguous from the unit, but it's not clear exactly how in the real world it's going to be used. and we end up getting into these arguments with applicants of, you know, who is this space deeded to? how is this being used? is it shared storage space for all of the tenants? is it deeded to one? and it and it, can lead, especially if it's not a condo building. it can lead into a challenging conversation. and so
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i think our thought on this is, as we're opening up this legislation, looking at ways that we can implement it better, whatever the square footage is that we land on, to really have it be the pure contiguous primary living space. and so that's that's why we had that recommendation. it just is going to make implementation a lot easier most of the time. what we're talking about is you walk into a common vestibule, you know, there's a staircase up, there's a door to the side. you know, it's pretty obvious that that's not part of anyone's living space. but it wasn't clearly defined in the legislation that we're to exclude that. so part of this is a little bit of just clarifying the language. so that we're really clear that what we're looking at is in the unit, the storage spaces are kind of the more prickly ones, if you will. but that would be sort of my best answer to your question. okay. and i know that there are plenty of examples out there where people might be gaming this with storage spaces, but that's a broader issue. and so i'm in support of recommendation three. if it does pass with this recommendation, i just suggest that we keep an eye on what's
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actually happening. as always. okay. and then i think i mostly just have comments for the second recommendation of allowing up to 4000ft!s as an incentive to also add an 800 square foot unit. i come down more on the side with that one that it really does seem in opposition to the intent and spirit of this legislation. we've gone from a, you know, 3000 square foot per unit cap to something where now that let's say it's a single family home property, i would love to see a second unit on it, but we're talking about 4800ft!s in the building, which is a pretty substantial increase over the 3000 square foot cap that was sort of intended behind this, so i, i'm open to other ways to craft that. i'm not quite sure what commissioner imperiale, what you meant in terms of the if we keep it at 3000ft!s, i don't know what the incentive is to provide the second unit at that point. so i'm not sure that
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that's working for me as some sort of alternative recommendation, unless i would like to hear more. but, right now i'm not leaning in favor of recommendation to. commissioner. so thank you. i have a just a basic math question here. if you don't mind answering my question just to clarify on your recommendation number two, that means a house can go up to 4800 square foot total. no, it means that a house could go up to 4000ft!s and have one 800 square foot, at least 800 square foot unit. it could be more than 800ft!s, but there would have to be two units on the property. the maximum size of the largest unit would be 4000ft!s. the minimum size of the second unit would be 800ft!s. okay, so in that parcel there's two units, but total will be 4800. the
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building would be building 4800ft!s. okay. and then your recommendation number three is the share space. that doesn't count does it include the egress pathway. and deck, it would be anything that's not dedicated as gross. what our fits, our definition of gross floor area. so outdoor decks i don't believe count in the definition of gross floor area. but something that's within the interior walls, like as miss waddy mentioned, shared stairwells is the really the biggest one. so if the entrance to this building is one common entrance with a hallway and then maybe one of the units, you have to walk up a set of stairs. that's what we're talking about when we say shared space. so the building in your example, you could have a 800 square foot or larger second unit, a maximum 4000 square foot unit. and that shared interior space that is meant for common access. it's
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accessible by both units. that's including exiting path that is required by building code. correct. okay. so those will be all not counted. correct okay. so is it fair to say that this given parcel could kind of become like 5000ft!s or 5500 because, fire code require two means of egress and the common staircase, you discount all the common staircase, the whole pathway to exit. yes. and it could be even larger than that, because again, the second unit, it's a minimum of 800ft!s. if they have the lot area, let's say this is an overly large lot of 5000ft!s. they could have as many as our allowable building envelope can fit that. the building itself could be as large as that with the allowable densities for that zoning district. okay. thank you for the information. may i ask one thing? i'm sorry. i think you
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might want to chime in later, but just like in general for this particular, neighborhood, corona heights and the other one that is in this proposal, would you say, what is the percentage of like really large lots and what are what are the average lot sizes? that's a great question. i think what's interesting is when we first developed the corona heights sud, one of the reasons it was developed is because a lot of them were substandard lots because of all of the slopes on the lots. it's a very hilly neighborhood. this is a fairly expansive area, the area that the sud covers. so i think you can generally say that most lots in the flatlands are going to be your standard. by and large, your standard 2500 square foot lot miss what you might be able to elaborate more on whether this particular area has any, anything more than our average of larger or smaller lots. sorry, i don't have the exact answer off the top of my head, but this neighborhood is fairly
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diverse in its lot sizes. there are definitely, some much larger lots, particularly in corona heights. there's actually a lot of through lots where there's frontages, both on the sort of the tops, you know, steeply sloping part of the lot and the bottom and a lot of those lots tend to exceed 2500ft!s and already have homes that are, you know, significantly larger than the size thresholds established here, the other point i was just going to mention is to keep in mind, this ordinance is also expanding beyond just rh districts and into other zoning districts. there's not a ton of other properties that are outside of the rr. you know, rh is here, but we shouldn't presume that two units is the only number of units that could be in a building. so there could be a multi unit building as well. you know, if you were in, i don't know if miss maloney sort of scanned all the zoning districts, but there could be zoning districts here that allow more, more density than just two units. and this might be helpful. this is slightly out of date. it's from 2020 when we were first analyzing this original zoning controls, where they would apply to all rh districts citywide, the caveat that i said in in 2021, and i
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will say again, is that this is not perfect data. this is the best we could do based on the assessor information and the calculations we can do with what we have. but if i could get the overhead. sfgov the overhead, please. all right. so this is not lot sizes. this is average unit size. so in multi units buildings we're looking at slightly you know taking that what the assessor has given us as the building size and dividing it by the number of units. the assessor tells us are in the building. so again very imperfect is going to include common spaces in this when we're dividing the calculations. but as you can see, certain neighborhoods have an average unit size that is much larger
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than others. it can be an indication of lot size as well, though not always. so going down to the area that's affected by this sud and i'll zoom in a little to make this slightly more readable. i'll try to get around the captions here. so it says that in, noe valley, the average home size is 1449ft!s. whereas our twin peaks area, it's slightly larger, but about the same at 1461 castro upper market, which makes sense because we have a little bit higher density there is, 1342ft!s, and that matches with some of our more hilly neighborhoods like glen park and dimond heights. okay thank you. i have one last question. it's kind of related to what miss
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walti was mentioning. like some of the, lot here are not just for two units, so there will be possibility there will be a four plex or so in those scenario, what with this recommendation. what is each of the unit maximum size could be sure. so if i could get the overhead again this is also in your case reports as one of the exhibits. so on the left we have where the sud currently applies, where it currently applies. and then on the right we have where the expansion would be not only with the boundaries, but also with our zoning districts. so anything that's not that pale yellow, like what you're seeing on the left are the new zoning districts. this would apply to which includes a little bit of down in the south west side. and all of our purple, which is our
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nc t and ncds, in our nts zoning is form based. so the money, the amount of units you can build on the lot depends on the size of your lot, and in our ncds it's generally between it's generally about 3 to 5 units per lot. but again it just depends. it's not a straight okay. yeah. so our ncds like nc one which i'm not sure offhand if we have nc one here, we might in cole valley, the lot maximums are numeric, just like our residential districts, and the four plex ordinance does not apply there, whereas in residential districts it does. so in our nc three districts you can build more units. but again, it's numerically controlled. okay. yeah. and looking at this, just with the zoning map pulled up, it looks like there's nc one.
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there's for sure nc three there's two, there's r1, r2, r3, r1, rm two, nc three and upper market nct. so there's a, there's a pretty diverse swath of different types of zoning districts. some are density controlled and some are density d controlled. okay. thank you. and the 3000 foot limit applies in which of those districts under the proposed ordinance? all of them. so even in an nc, rm so even in an nc three, your building maximums could still only be three. it's unit per unit per unit. correct. and we did look at that when we were analyzing this. it's fairly rare that we have a proposal for a especially a single family home in an nc three district, especially of a 3000 or more square footage, limit. and so this is per unit is the thing to
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remember here. and i think that's particularly important. the fact that it is shifting over to covering more nc related districts. why recommendation one and three are especially important is we're going to see more multi-unit buildings applicable. thank you. commissioner williams. i want to thank the commissioners for all your thoughtful questions, i've learned just just listening to what's going on, up here, i've, i've got different insight, from reading the packet, i mean, as far as, as far as equity, you know, i think the spirit of the proposal is good, keeping these homes down to a size that, is not small, 3000ft!s is, substantial, and so i think that's that's, that's reasonable, given your
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recommendations, 1 in 3 even kind of lifts some some, gives more, more room, for that flexibility. and then, you know, how, how these monster homes impact neighborhoods. i think is, is really important to focus focus on because, the price of, of, of a single family home is, is like completely out of reach for many folks, we have to do something about that, families are leaving, and, the pressures, this is just becoming a town where, you know, if you're not very wealthy, you. it's very hard to live here. and so, i, i appreciate, supervisor mandelman's effort here, and, i
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think the recommendations one and three are are good recommendations. i'm not going to support recommendation two. i think 3000, given, given the recommendation one and three, i think that's that's reasonable. and so that's all i want to say. vice president moore, this is an extremely difficult issue, and i appreciate everybody's comments and more questions. you ask. the more complicated it gets. i want to ask, actually, miss swati, a few months ago, and i'm not exactly sure how many weeks we had a building where that was, was enlarged, claimed that there was an adu on the second floor while the third and first floor were occupied by the unit owner. however, these three units,
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these two units were connected by an elevator. and while one can say that the elevator would not be going operable to floor two, it did connect potentially connects by stair and by elevator throughout the building. how would you calculate that the stair? is that a common space or is that a whatever? we have seen several of those. and i'm kind of curious how these little new tricks. sure could be interpreted. and i will preface this with saying this is not necessarily written down anywhere, but i'm going to go with my gut of how i think we would approach this. this was presented to me, i think if the elevator was keyed as being limited to one unit only, which is often the case in this scenario that we see, that would be integral in part of the primary units square footage. so we would count that if there was a stair that truly both, you know, both households would have to walk in from the street and walk the stairs to get into
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their door, that would be excluded. so in this particular case, it was ambiguous because it could could be interpreted either way, i getting back to what is in front of us, i am very supportive of one and three. i do have big questions about a number two, particularly since this legislation does not, codify that the adu has to be used as an adu immediately at completion of project. and for that reason, i do not see any i do not see any, way of opening a backdoor for this as being another attempt to make a mansion. so in support of one and two and one and three, very, very pleased that, supervisor mandelman opened this up to a broader consideration that is also an easier for the department to administer. so those would be my points. i like to make a recommendation if we are ready, can i ask one second and then i'll come back to you.
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did staff look at other ways, to create incentives to encourage the increase in density? well, maybe pass that over to miss maloney. thank you, president diamond. that's a great question. we've been examining this problem for a long time through many different efforts. some that come to us through ordinances from supervisors and some that we have led at the direction of the commission, i think we stand by our idea that the best way to incentivize density is to have the carrot and the stick to limit the home size, if you're going to try to build something that's a large single family home or one unit on a lot that's zoned for more zoned r-2 or r-3, we should be only allowing you to go up to a certain size before you are essentially required to give us another unit of at least a minimum size. we were trying to take that same concept that you've seen in other efforts in
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the past that have potentially maybe been a little too complicated and simplify that in this scenario, what we saw in the first two and a half years of implementing this study is that when forced applicants would build an adu, if that adu was under a certain size, it was questionable how it would be used. but applicants that come to us with the project already, as originally proposed, creating an adu, especially of a livable size, it feels like that adu is more, for lack of a better word, legitimate. it's an adu that actually feels like a sizable home. it's not going to be used as an entertainment room or a weight room, and it actually may be used for multi-generational living, even if it won't be individually rented out. and so that's kind of what we were trying to get at with this idea. 3000ft!s, we all agree, is a vey large home. so the difference
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between a 3000ft!s and a 4000fts in terms of affordability and being accessible to the middle class, san franciscan doesn't feel like that great of a difference. but if we can encourage somebody to then build us an 800 square foot home in this same high resource neighborhood that opens up new doors to more middle class, accessible housing. so that was our intent with that specific incentive. i appreciate the additional explanation. thank you, vice president laura, i'll go back to you because i interrupted, i'm going to go on a limb here, particularly i just came back from europe two weeks ago, and i was talking to people about densification in europe, and it's approached very differently. so here's a current capacity of cities. their infrastructure, their streets, the transportation systems. they have. and in order to densify, which has become a worldwide problem, people are starting to think about giving informed recommendations on how people could more efficiently live. in
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particular, unit sizes. so you're starting to give the guidance by people, perhaps taking a little less space rather than expanding, because in order to accommodate more people with limited resources in infrastructure, etc, there is a way of carefully guiding that we shrink our units still make them totally livable, and they all are, but take up less space in order to accommodate more people. i need to say that because at some point i would like to share with the department unit size, design, and approaches to livability that we may not have explored. so i'm going to get to making a motion, on what's in front of us, and i like to, make a motion that we support with modification one and three second. as may, may, may need to
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be an intent. because at this moment, i think the motion is written with modifications. that's plural, not specifying one and three only. i think that modification can be made as part of the resolution. if this motion passes, i don't think we have to do a motion of intent. i think staff can handle that. okay if there's no further deliberation, commissioners there is a motion that has been seconded to adopt a recommendation with modifications, but only those recommended by the department. one and three on that motion, commissioner mcgarry. i'm torn because the two is an extra unit that will not will not exist, going this way. so i for that reason, i would, approve, but, staff recommendations one, two and three. so the motion on the
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table is, is, motion to adopt a recommendation for approval only with recommendations one and three right now. so so let me say that if this motion were to fail, no i would introduce another motion with one, two and three. very good. okay thank you commissioner. so. can you ask another one first. so the motion on the table is a recommendation to approve with staff modifications, but only modifications one and three. and commission president diamond just indicated if that if this motion fails she will encourage someone else to make a motion that would adopt a recommendation for approval with all of staff's modifications, including recommendation number two. thank you for giving me a few more seconds to think. so i vote, no. commissioner williams. yes, commissioner braun. hi,
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commissioner. imperial. hi, commissioner moore, i and commissioner. president diamond. no. that motion passes 4 to 3 with commissioners mcgarry. so. and diamond voting against commissioners. that will place us on item 15 for case number 2024. hyphen 005622 pca laboratory. uses. in the urban mixed use zoning district planning code amendments. good afternoon, commissioners veronica flores, planning department staff and a brief welcome to commissioner mcgarry. and thank you to president, commissioner diamond, the item before you is the laboratory uses in the urban mixed use or umu zoning district ordinance. this was sponsored by supervisor walton. and unfortunately, we do not have anyone from the office attending the hearing today. but i am joined by miss laurel
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arvanitidis. she can correct the pronunciation for me later. she's from the office of economic and workforce development and she will share a few words, after my presentatio, the proposed ordinance does primarily two things, and the first is to revise the definition of laboratory to include biotechnology in the listed examples, the second amendment is to make laboratory uses a not permitted use in the zoning district as drafted, this legislation would impact the proposed laboratory development at 700 indiana street. this is an item that you heard on june 13th and unanimously approved. there has since been a ceqa appeal filed on this project, and it has been scheduled for the board of supervisors in september, followed by the large
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project authorization appeal at the board of appeals on october 9th. so whatever the outcome of the appeal process, this proposed project at 700 indiana would not be vested through a building permit application in time or before the effective date of this legislation. there may also be other potentially impacted projects, but most or many of those are small enough to be approved over the counter, and staff is just not aware of what those projects may be or how many the department does not support. this proposed ordinanc. it is inconsistent with the general plan, and staff recommends that you adopt a recommendation of disapproval. staff recognizes that the industry has changed and really, the real world application of what people consider a laboratory, a life science. it's different than what we have in our current code and the way we
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define these terms, as currently proposed, adding the biotechnology activities within the definition of laboratory does not change the definition. it merely illustrates an additional example. but a lot of this or all of this is already covered within the laboratory definition, some examples of this include medical research, food chain testing, fertility specialists. so again all of this fits under the definition. the proposed amendment does not change the implementation here. additionally, this amendment does not resolve any of the confusion between the overlapping definitions of laboratory versus life science, and the department hopes that future ordinances will, provide more effort to further clarify that code, rather than just elongating the confusion between
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these terms. the staff report did outline some potential solutions to avoid these confusing definitions and instead focusing the definitions based on land use. part of that solution would also be to eliminate the life science definition, which again, just adds or continues to add to the confusion regarding prohibiting laboratory uses within the zoning district. i'll just start off by noting that the umu district is really intended to promote a vibrant mix of uses and maintaining characteristics of the formerly industrial zoned areas. it's meant to serve as a buffer between residentially zoned areas and the production, distribution and repair, or pdr districts within the eastern neighborhoods. the map in the staff report shows that the umvu districts are dispersed through various neighborhoods, so this amendment is really more far
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reaching and staff believes that are larger unintended consequences here, spans the dogpatch mission bay soma, just to name a few neighborhoods. and so really, these are some of the neighborhoods that we do want to see. laboratory uses. we do want to encourage laboratories. and the concern is that by prohibiting laboratories within all of the umu districts, that this would then drive up the demand for nearby or pdr spaces in the proximity, and we would potentially price out some of these industrial firms from the city. the department has, you know, put in a lot of effort a number of years to preserve pdr uses and pdr districts. so this proposed ordinance could unintentionally undo a lot of those efforts. it also make it harder for the city to attract and maintain commercial and industrial activity, and also
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assist newly emerging economic activities, which goes against the general plan. additionally laboratory developments and these types of activities offer a full range of employment opportunities. so it's not just those highly skilled technicians. there's also still some entry level laboratory technicians and other just support positions that do not require advanced degrees or years of experience. so we want to be able to maintain the full breadth of the employment opportunities here. and further, we do recognize that the work environment has changed many jobs are now hybrid or even fully remote positions, laboratory uses and laboratory positions are one of the rare examples where employees really are required to come in, to come into the research as we saw in many of the public comments, some of the experiments or
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research need to be tended to 24 over seven or need to be easily accessible. so these employees are coming in to the facilities they really add to the street activation. they frequent our local businesses and they do boost the local economy, staff also hears and understands some of the concerns represented from the dogpatch and potrero communities, but believes that there are other legislative efforts that would better achieve the types of uses that these neighborhoods want to see in their communities, and that these other legislative efforts could also still continue to preserve and attract laboratory uses, while also protecting our pdr uses and pdr districts, if the concern is the potential loss of an active commercial corridor, zoning could require active ground floor commercial uses along specific streets. this could also be specifically called out or required for
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laboratory developments, and this and other potential solutions were discussed in the staff report. again the recommendation today is that you adopt a recommendation for disapproval. and at this time, i'd like to invite miss laurel arvanitidis to also share a few comments. thank you. hi. i'm laurel auer, can you hear me with my mask on? okay. i'm laurel arvanitidis. i'm the director of business development in the office of economic and workforce development, and i thank you guys for allowing me to address you on this item, in my role, our team works to help businesses start, stay and grow in san francisco. we are successful at this when we can demonstrate both a business friendly climate in san francisco and an ecosystem which
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will be beneficial to the business. that's an ecosystem of support businesses that help them better execute their mission and ecosystem of customers, and a strong workforce base in evaluating this legislation. we have concerns that this moves away from all of the work that we've been doing together to further these goals of improving our economic climate and making sure that a diversity of businesses that employ people and provide in-person work opportunities can exist in san francisco. we've worked hard with you on this. we've passed proposition h, we've passed the small business recovery act, we've passed the downtown streamlining legislation. we've passed the small business permitting improvement legislation. we've done a lot of work on this and this legislation. we fear makes us step backwards. as we reviewed the legislation, as veronica mentioned, we were trying to understand what businesses would be told they couldn't locate in this part of
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our city. and these are businesses that support business, that support businesses. so, testing labs that test our food chain, that help food businesses understand how to do their nutrition labels that help marijuana, cannabis businesses comply with testing regulations, labs that test medical devices so that they can safely be implanted in patients, medical labs that support our doctors with ivf treatments and other treatments, pregnancy tests. blood labs that help make sure that the blood you donate can safely be used by a patient. specimen testing labs material testing labs so that when we're requiring that windows and tall buildings be able to withstand to wind, we can confirm that and they can comply with those regulations. here in san francisco. these are all these are all labs that support a diversity of other businesses and existing in san francisco. and they create jobs, jobs
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across the spectrum of workforce janitors, lab assistants, lab technicians, field service engineers, all accessible jobs and jobs for professionals with more education like microbiologists, research scientists, ecologists, biochemists. these are all very important to the city and disrupting this at this moment in time, as we're trying to bring business back to san francisco and get as many in-person workers as possible, is concerning to us, please consider disapproval of this ordinance so we can further the work we've been doing to make sure that our business climate can improve in san francisco. okay. thank you. that concludes presentations. we should open up public comment. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this item. if you're in the chambers, please come forward and line up on the screen side of the room. sir. hello good
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afternoon. my name is helen chen. i am a molecular biologist and a business owner. my company is called alexia and we are developing new drugs to treat colon and pancreatic cancer. i live and work in dogpatch. as an immigrant, i believe one of the biggest thing that america can do is innovation and diversity. and for scientists, having access to laboratories is like an engineer having a garage to do a crucial workshop to build prototypes so that we can improve human health by allowing small biotech businesses to thrive in san francisco with high quality laboratories, we can foster creation of groundbreaking innovations. and for my company, i mean, developing a cancer drug takes 20 years and we need funding agencies. when i had a laboratory in davis, it's really hard to get anybody to come out. i moved to san francisco. i got
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my co-founders here, and we were able to attract millions of funding because i can tell them, come and look at my laboratory because this is what we do, is something that's tangible. and i had an investor who came in yesterday. he said, i will love my daughter, 13 year old daughter, to come and see a young scientist can come out and do the work that we believe is true, and i really encourage you to consider democratizing health care, because i don't want to work for a large pharmaceutical company. i have my own ideas, and it's great that we can have all this innovation being done here, right here in san francisco, and also very supportive of my neighborhood. i talked to the shopkeeper, local liquor store from ramallah. i lined up the neighbor bakery and just enjoy all the local foods i don't. i hardly drive just because i live here, and i worry about the restaurants in my neighborhood because, you know, restaurants come and go and i
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take my friends there and i can do that because i don't have to drive an hour just go to palo alto just to go to work. so, i hope that you sincerely think about, how laboratories can impact biologists in the ways we want to improve our human health and also how we love our community, just like everyone else. thank you. good afternoon. my name is veronica schober, and i am a senior scientist at startup. biotech company based in san francisco. i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the proposed legislation to ban laboratory use in the urban mixed use district. actually, i'm deeply concerned about this potential, potentially negative consequences this legislation could have on both our global health system and our city. such a ban would significantly hinder
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our collective effort to develop life saving medicines for our patients. for those of us in the biotech field, 24 over seven access to laboratory is essential to our work. i believe that progress that biotech industry has made so far is largely due to the fact that scientists are able to live and work in the same place, in the same city. if this legislation is enacted, our company and many other startups will have to relocate from san francisco, this would not only make it logistically challenging for us to perform our experiments, but also increase already high commercial and residential vacancy rate in the city. additionally, being based in san francisco allows us to collaborate with other companies and such institutions as university of san francisco. very often we use very expensive and essential laboratory equipment located there. we participate in scientific
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discussions, attend meetings. these opportunities are vital for advancing our research and staying in the forefront of innovation. moreover, biotech companies often engage with general public through events and outreach, and this fosters intellectually stimulating and vibrant community. i urge the city of san francisco to recognize the significant value that biotech sector brings to our community, and instead of adopting this restrictive legislation, i think you should consider developing policies that will support and nurture biotech industry in the city. thank you for your attention. hello. good afternoon. my name is kathleen molnar and i'm a 12 year resident of san francisco as well as a phd scientist. i'm speaking in support of laboratories in the urban mixed use, so when i arrived in san francisco, i had the great
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fortune of landing on page street in the haight. and those four years that i lived there, i just really cherished, like, that, mixed use sort of zoning success. right? i knew all my neighbors, but at the same time, i was able to walk at groceries and bike or take muni to work. so the dogpatch is the same sort of bustling neighborhood, that exists for mixed use today. i think developments like the 953 indiana street, nbc biolabs really bring like, folks are saying, scientific jobs, to an area that's already, well connected with public transportation, an area that's walkable, you can grab coffee at pacino or at the cheese shop and a place where people really want to linger. so the minnesota street art project. so it's a really diverse, wonderful mixed use area. so i fully support laboratories being part of this urban mixed use properties. and i think the neighborhood is flourishing because of that and
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not in spite of it. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners, appreciate you, miss diamond, for all your public service and appreciate you new commissioner. thank you, my name is mr. dennis williams, junior, a board of supervisor, awarded community leader, local micro developer, and the head of plaza east development advisory committee and long time resident of san francisco. please commission, i hope you adopt a no approval on this matter. political officials should not be allowed to revise definitions that were thoughtfully put in place, especially simply to halt projects in your district. this egregious attempt to ban laboratory use in the umc zoning is not a good policy for the for the city of san francisco. excuse me? its residents or its small micro businesses. 700 indiana will help san
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francisco's bevy of sf's brightest creative minds. excuse me on positive things. only positive things can come from university students having close access to safe, technology based laboratory facilities in close proximity to their school, as well as their apartments. as a fellow uc graduate, time management for students is everything. san francisco must get back to being a beacon of light and hope for the rest of the world, especially through medical and health care. i wonder today what is supervisor shamann motives are as he induces introduces such legislation? excuse me even after the hard work completed by this amazing commission, i cry foul community advocates and several underfunded black small business owners up and down deplorable third street have all pleaded at different times with supervisor shamann to introduce such legislation as, but not limited to, the inclusion of qualified local black developers, general contractors and subcontractors to joint venture partnerships with luxury out of state developers and
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general contractors corporations who take massive amounts of san francisco's finances to their own respective states, to no avail. he has. so why play a political game simply because you see some of your own people potentially gaining an equal playing field. it's downright counterproductive in my opinion. i just want to briefly thank i want to specifically thank excuse me, mr. douglas crawford. mr. robert of nbc bio labs, mr. dewey, but most notably mr. ryan, who has been diligently involved in our community outreach throughout dtn is very hard work. as you know, though, it's not in writing job training, maintenance and even training and future employment opportunities in the biotech sector will be available. i take this opportunity to emphasize the critical importance of nbc bio labs, prioritizing dtn residents and resident owned businesses, and supporting our sf hyper local building and trades contractors collective. in all employment, business and
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contracting opportunities and not limited to just this future development. dewey land company and nbc bio labs dedication to promoting diversity and supporting sf small businesses within the construction industry is commendable and aligns with our shared values of inclusivity and community. community suppor. thank you. good afternoon, planning commission. my name is mary ludlum. i'm a biotech researcher, entrepreneur, founder, ceo, parent and sf resident san francisco resident. i've lived and worked in umu districts for over 20 years. i'm a resident of the mission. can you speak? and i own a women owned small business early stage biotech company that's run out of both the dogpatch and mission bay over the last ten years. i strongly oppose the proposed legislation, and i would like to briefly highlight three points to assist your deliberations.
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firstly, banning laboratory developments in zones negates a key advantage relative to developments outside of san francisco. the city ranks number one in the nation for walkability and fourth for biking, offering straightforward and environmentally friendly access to work, educational, shopping and dining resources in contrast, laboratory developments outside of the city typically exist in a relative desert of such resources. the proposed legislation would rob the city of a key competitive advantage to attract new entrepreneurs, new businesses, entrepreneurs, and their associated economic benefits. echoing the findings of the office of economic development. in the current climate, we should be playing to our strengths or even better, doubling down on them. secondly, i'd like to highlight that early stage biotech provides exceptional education and training opportunities. many early stage technical companies, including my own, are recipients of federal grants that offer access to supplementary funding to support training opportunities for veterans, high
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school students, and teachers. my company has also hosted students from the usf professional masters in biotech program, which places students in part time employment as part of their core course requirements. having these opportunities within convenient commute distance of local communities so that they can attend both their work responsibilities and their educational obligations, is key to finding suitable candidates for these roles, which are a win win both for local biotech and technical businesses, but also for these trainee candidates. lastly, i'd like to highlight that the sharp decline of brick and mortar real estate retail and the dominance of remote work in other sectors has allowed us in other business sectors, has alerted us all to the neighborhood risks of rapidly changing or easily disrupted business models that leave a trail of empty shop fronts and vacant office buildings in their wake. laboratory and biotech research are long term business endeavors that are not easily relocated on a whim and that
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necessitate on site work. laboratory space developments thus offer an opportunity to establish long term businesses that train and employ highly skilled workers on site, attracting ecosystems of employees that are engaged with and invested in the success of their neighborhoods. thank you for your time and i urge you to oppose this legislation. hello, my name is carlos olguin, originally from mexico. i went to grad school in pittsburgh, carnegie mellon for computer science, and eventually i came to san francisco in 2008, i ran a corporate research group, focused in biotech in a large company, and eventually i made the switch in 2016 or 17 to create my own startup. and i would just say if it wasn't for nbc, i wouldn't be here talking
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to you because it was just so easy. as a parent of young children, then, to be able to, you know, follow your dream, we make biosensors, consumer facing biosensors, things like hydration tests, focus on athletes initially, but eventually the elderly and our children. and, i just, you know, sometimes i would just take my bike to take them to school and then go, go to work. that would just be impossible to do if i didn't have the chance to, have a space to start a company. we have received grants from sbir and i, you know, signed by people like nancy pelosi. so we're super excited that we're doing something important, in general. but we think we also are helping, you know, in our own little way to grow the city and reactivate it. so, again, i wouldn't be able to do that if places like nbc were not able to keep expanding and making it more easy for startup funders
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like us to keep keep moving forward. so thank you. hi. good afternoon, as a proud longtime resident of san francisco, i believe we must preserve the ability to build laboratory space in our city, while remote work has reshaped our lives, as you've heard today, lab work is necessarily in person, and labs create many jobs, right? not just for phd trained scientists, but also for technicians and support staff. as well. biotech might seem complex for people outside of the field, but it's not so different from following a recipe or solving a puzzle that requires creativity, diligence, persistence, and teamwork. and scientists are driven by a desire to understand the world and to solve some of the world's greatest challenges, while the techniques that we use
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can be intricate, the goals and benefits i believe are profoundly impactful and relatable. startups are the true innovators developing life saving technologies by leveraging cutting edge research and taking risks that larger companies can't and don't. san francisco's unique confluence of scientists, entrepreneurs, and capital makes it an ideal hub. but without the proper lab infrastructure, companies will have to go elsewhere. and that would be a real shame. as chief operating officer of nbc bio labs, we provide lab space and support for biotech startups developing new medicines, diagnostic tests, medical devices and technologies to help combat climate change and promote sustainability. we strive to be good neighbors as well. our scientists have chosen to commit their life's work to improving health and the environment, so they're intrinsically conscientious citizens of our building. the neighborhood and the city, we
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recently volunteered at a neighborhood science festival, and in the past month alone, we've welcomed over 100 visiting students from around the world for tours and talks with our resident scientists and entrepreneurs. our companies are hosting over a dozen interns this summer, giving many their first taste of what a career in biotech would look like. so i hope this commission will continue to support the growth of biotech in san francisco. and i recommend not approving the legislation. thank you for your consideration and for all that you do and have done for the city. good afternoon commissioners. my name is christy carella and i am the bay area policy manager for biocom california. biocom is the state's oldest and largest trade association for life sciences, representing over 1400 members,
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with 620 of those members here in the bay area. i am here today to ask you to disapprove this legislation. i did submit a comment letter on this agenda item, but i'll just emphasize some of the points that i made in that letter. viacom's recent economic impact report revealed that the life science sector generates over $8 billion of total economic output in san francisco. this includes over 25,000 jobs, both directly in the sector and also supported by the sector. 25,000 total. the employees of these laboratories, which not only include scientists but employees at all levels of education, are often residents of san francisco, living and working within the city. they are integral members of our community who contribute to the vibrancy and diversity of our city, both in the neighborhoods they live and the neighborhoods they work. banning labs from mixed use zones could potentially force companies to relocate outside of the city,
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undermining the innovation that san francisco prides itself on. i urge you to oppose this legislation rather than creating barriers that could harm our city's economic landscape, we should focus on finding solutions that allow these vital industries to thrive while maintaining the integrity of mixed use zones. thank you. good afternoon. i'm nicole kimes. i am the founder of schulte therapeutics, which is a spin out from ucsf. and i want to thank you, one, for the honor of being here and speaking to you on this big day for at least two of you. also, to simply say thank you for all of the work that you guys do. your job is complex and it's hard, and you have to balance many different levers to keep our cities vibrant and diversified and
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inclusive. and that's not an easy task. and i would say it's very similar to those of us who are scientists who look at biological systems. they're complex networks where you have to really look at all of the multifactorial ways in which they interact. and it's important to think about all of the different pieces that are coming to this. i'm actually a reluctant ceo of a biotech. never once wanted to start a company. it was never a dream of mine. but as a scientist at ucs, we started to learn that there was things in our microbiome and there was a way to actually address chronic, lifelong diseases by getting at the root cause of disease. that means if we intervene early enough, we're preventing disease. i was dismayed to find out that much many of our large commercial entities, that's not what they
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want to do. they have a very they have a wonderful role to play in science, but it is not the innovative, agile, early development that takes 10 to 20 years before you get to a commercial product that they're so good at utilizing and helping with health. so biotech is an extremely important role beyond biotech. i think it's important to point out that as a city and as a planning commission, you guys have done a lot of work to try and figure out how we take two wonderful characteristics of san francisco. one is our ardent support of grassroots work to keep our neighborhoods vibrant and diversified, as well as this amazing strife, strife, to really reach out and innovate in a way that nobody else does. and those can be seen as two
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competing entities. but this city has always historically taken both of those, held them together and made ways to work with them. and youmu is one of those ways to do that. and we think laboratory use is a really vital, important part of both grassroots and innovation. thank you very much. okay. last call for public comment. seeing none public comment is closed in. this matter is now before you commissioners. several weeks ago this commission unanimously approved the indiana project. and this hearing is somewhat of a rewind in terms of the testimony that we have heard, and i am scratching my head wondering if we have a solution in search of a problem, i am trying to understand what the issue is that supervisor walton
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is trying to solve with this proposed legislation, and i, i'm not saying it. i mean, we didn't hear any testimony about it. there's nothing in the draft staff report, so i am, listening to the arguments. i think the staff report was exceptionally well done in trying to talk about the consequences of this particular piece of legislation, and i find myself, very much wanting to disapprove. for all of the reasons that are listed, we have a 37% vacancy rate and need to be doing everything we can to attract and retain businesses. the umu zone seems like it was designed specifically for, laboratory uses. all that of analysis was done in the past. if we don't allow labs in the umu zone, then they have to go to the pdr zone,
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which puts increased pressure, and price increases on facilities in the pdr zone crowding out other uses that could be located that are only permitted to be located there, the problem i see, which i talked about and we all talked about last time, is i think the code definitions are a mess on biotech and laboratory, and they could use some cleanup, staff proposed. i think, a land use approach to doing that. and that's sensible, but that's completely different than what this particular piece of legislation does. if the problem is activation along the streets, then we have land use solutions and approaches we can design for that. if the issue is concern about safety from laboratories, then we should be looking at if that's a real issue or if that's a fear, and we could have more analysis on that to see if there really are concerns about particular types of laboratory
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uses that might create safety issues and understand whether or not there are already protocols in place to address those concerns. and if there aren't, then there may be life safety regulations that we need to adopt. but i'm not seeing this piece of legislation, as the way to approach this. and i think it sends a terrible message that we are very at a time when we need more business, that it's trying to discourage it. commissioner. so thank you. i think i'd like to quickly address what president diamond mentioned about if it's a really a life safety issue, that we do have a lot of good building code and fire code mechanism, actually, designed to save lives. and i myself had in my previous years of working for a larger architecture firm, i did some lab building and man, they are robust. so and really expensive, some of them are actually in ucsf. so i understand these challenges. why scientists can't
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move faster. i am thinking that not too long ago we had spent hours on this particular project and we had mentioned a lot of the good neighborhood outreach and community outreach and try to be a good neighbor from this particular project that, made my opinion, kind of initiated this legislative proposal amendment from supervisor walton. and i really in earnest believe, i hope the project sponsor is follow up with actually doing much more commitment on, not only elevating all the younger minds to continue to pick bioscience as a career, but also specifically in d10. i would like to see some commitment for that. i really try to grapple with what is the cost of us
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looking at this item today? i had the luxury to attend a talk yesterday about health care, and i in that talk i met quite a lot of innovators, scientists, doctors that turn into, the space between technology and healthcare. i didn't really understand that. it really takes if there's 100 drugs or devices to try to get through fda, only one will make it through, and it might take them 10 or 15 years. so you guys are in it in the very fossil industry and government regulation, we're not creating we're not trying to let you to do this like something doordash do. right. let's do another new app and deliver groceries. this is actually really going to save lives. and
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i think that our, current setup of our government isn't really, i mean, we could do a lot faster to help save lives and improve our, livability for everyone, our loved ones. so i don't want to prohibit any creativity in encouraging more people to come to san francisco, where we have a robust venture capitalist funding here to attract more people here to invent something besides doordash, to actually really save lives. so i don't see in land use matter, we should prohibit a new, really robust growth of economic industry that, not only hopefully you guys can actually create something faster and quicker that we don't have to wait for 25 years to get fda
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approval, but also immediately it will actually stimulate local businesses, workforce development and inspire our younger kids. and family, to pursue bioscience career. so i really don't want to see more scientists sitting in this room, spending the entire day coming here to talk about why, you know, like, you know what? don't displace us, you know? so, so i really appreciate my staff did a really good job. and alongside with food, share with us on such a really good report about explaining what kind of unintended consequences it will come if we vote, if we don't vote in favor for staff's recommendation. so i'm here in motion to adopt staff recommendation. second. commissioner williams, thank yo.
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i just want to appreciate everyone who came out today, and spoke, are your insights and your testimony is well taken. i have a different first of all, i had to leave. to, unfortunately, to use the bathroom during plannings, presentation. but was was there any social economic equity? analysis done? regarding this proposal, thank you, commissioner williams. the staff report and our analysis did not go into specific data of what the socio economic impact of this would be, by really from a big picture standpoint, we do have concerns of what the resulting legislation would be and prohibiting all new
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laboratories within umu. and so we described the concerns from there. and if i may also just add clarification, because i, i think there might be some confusion in, in the room and just the public of what the legislation would do to existing businesses or existing laboratories. so just wanted to also clarify that this proposed legislation would not directly impact those existing laboratories. it would not require those legally established laboratories to close doors to vacate the premises, leave the districts, or leave the city. what it made, wht willo is, create or turn those legally established laboratories into non-complying uses. and from there, those laboratories would not be able to expand, let's say, if they wanted to hire more staff, conduct more experiments, they would not be able to expand anymore in the district. they also would not be able to
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accommodate larger, specialized equipments or facilities. if it did require an expansion in that respect. so a physical impact, expansion that way. so those would be the again, just for in response to some of the comments today, just to clarify, existing legally established laboratories would still be able to continue. they just would not be able to expand. they would not be able to get new laboratory neighbors if this were enacted as drafted. i have another question for you. how about the existing families and, and residences that live in the in the area, how how would more influx of, these biotech companies, how would that impact our existing residents? and, has there been any analysis on that,
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in terms of our existing residents, let's say if they are small business owners, they would really benefit from the continued existence of the laboratories. or if there's new staff, if this have you, have you i mean, have you guys, have you guys like done any impact reports or, because it's, it sounds to me like, if there is no controls that that the biotech industry can come in more into these, into this area. and i'm just wondering what the impacts are, going to be on the existing residents and how that how it's going to impact our social and racial, equity in the city. sure. the staff report does have a racial social equity analysis in it. it talks more
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about the impact that's going to have on jobs in our pdr distric. so one of our concerns is, first, this would push laboratory users outside the city, but if not outside the city, then to our pdr districts, which then has a negative impact on our production, distribution, repair jobs which tend to have entry level labor and semi-skilled labor jobs there. so it could impact, those communities by taking away jobs for them. umu is a very mixed use district. it's not predominantly residential, but even if there are residences there, they're not going to be pushed out by umu because we have very robust controls to preserve housing in san francisco. so section 317 would not allow a laboratory use to demolish someone's home and displace them, and then build a laboratory there that would be reviewed by you all. and i 100% guaranteed you wouldn't allow that to happen. so and the one other point, i just want to
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clarify, following up on veronica's statement, although this wouldn't impact existing legally established laboratory uses, there are, i believe, three projects, including the one that you guys talked about robustly. you know, maybe a month ago. and i believe two others that have not fully vested their permits. so this legislation passed. those projects could not proceed. so it would have the effect of undoing what you unanimously approved a few months ago. so it would have direct impact on projects. i think everyone here feel are consistent with our general plan and good economic drivers for the city. just, one more question. so how are we going to separate or how is how are we going to separate, these laboratories from, from residences where people live? i mean, i think there's a concern about that as well. and i'm wondering if this legislation addresses that, because that was
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something that came up at, like miss waddy during the last, hearing where we did approve, that that project. but i think that's a concern, too, for people that live in this area. how are we going to have a buffer? between, residences and, and laboratories? so i'm just wondering, i guess i'm not sure what the conflict is with that. laboratories are pretty self-contained. they don't usually have noxious fumes. not a lot of noise. and the umu district is intended. i don't i mean, i'm not sure of that. i mean, i'm not sure of that. i appreciate that that you're mentioning that, but i'm not sure of that. well, it's difficult to understand what this legislation is for because we don't understand exactly what the supervisor is intending to do other than prohibit labs in
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the umu entirely, which is not just the dogpatch area, but extends also into several other areas of the city. so we're sort of responding to something we don't fully understand his concerns on. we have reached out to try to narrow in on those concerns. so we're making educated guesses about what impacts labs could have. but that hasn't been fully articulated to us. so when the umu was set up, it was intended as a mixed use district with a variety of different uses in it, even if this passes, that's still true of a variety of different uses, can still locate there, such as light manufacturing. i believe can also be there. so i don't think the impetus on this is noxious fumes or noise to residents. i don't think that's why this ordinance was introduced, but at least that hasn't been articulated to staff. i appreciate you. thank you. that's it. let's see.
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commissioner braun, i definitely i support, making the recommendation to dis disapprove this item. and there's a couple of reasons why, some of which have been articulated already a little bit. but, you know, at at first glance, banning laboratory uses throughout the entirety of the umu seems like a very broad brush approach to a zoning district that encompasses a very large geography, not just central, the central waterfront, but also potrero hill, showplace square, mission, it and it has been, i think, selectively, selectively approved for parts of the city based on the idea of maintaining that vibrant mix of uses and looking at, you know, what's on the ground today, making sure it's not likely to lead to residential displacement, at least not direct displacement. and, you know, i take to heart the idea
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that that these laboratory facilities really do support our economic diversity and our ability to attract innovative businesses. i think the point about, you know, what could happen with our, our areas that are actually still zoned as pdr for production, distribution and repair where we need to have facilities that support things like construction and manufacturing and distribution. it's, the i don't want to create a situation where now we have a lot of lab uses who are trying to outcompete those types of businesses, for space in our pdr districts or commercial districts, especially because those businesses themselves benefit, in a way, from having these lab businesses, lab based businesses in the city as well, you know, creating a diversity of job opportunities that are related and supported to all these lab buildings, and then also, i'd hate to see a lot of these lab uses go to other
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cities as well. we are in competition with a lot of different places throughout the bay area, and we are a place where, it's a highly efficient place for people to get to. you can travel. the commutes are much easier, people have a wide, range of occupations. they're able to access jobs in the city. and so, you know, i would like to keep those jobs here in the city as well, i will say i really appreciate the very detailed analysis done by department staff in the report, and i hope that those ideas and recommendations, especially around cleaning up our definitions in the zoning code, can maybe get some traction, separate from this, this discussion, so that maybe there's a more nuanced fix that could be pursued in the future. but with the legislation that's in front of us, i do agree. i support the adoption of the recommendation to disapprove. thank you, vice president. more
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i think mr. starr's comment just a few minutes ago, kind of expressed my concerns. if staff is not able to fully understand what the supervisor intended, i personally do not do not believe that i can opine on just saying that it's disapproval, but that i would encourage staff to spend more time with the supervisor rather than saying no. the reason why i'm saying that is as follows, for quite a while, particularly, the potrero boosters have verbalized their concerns about, lab use in umu and that is a very simple comment by residents being concerned about biosafety and biosecurity. i think there is still enough uncertainty about the potential leaks of covid from laboratories, and we all
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can have different opinions about that. there's been a lot said and not said, and there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other, but that particular worldwide experience i think, created, i'm sure, among all of us, including our scientists here, a significant amount of concern about lab safety. and while i greatly appreciate all what you're doing, and while i consider it to be increasingly more important to for mankind to move into the future, i do believe that the potrero boosters, because they're the recipients of a large lab use in their neighborhood, are concerned about it is, zoning the right tool to regulate biosafety? i don't have any idea. there is probably an issue of oversight or coordination and coordinated oversight that would do a better job. and i do not know if this
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restriction as it comes from supervisor walton's office, will help us with that. i do appreciate the mayor's office a strong stand, and i apologize for not clearly catching your name, it was a great presentation, and everything you said i would be in support of. except i do believe that there are reasonable safety concerns that need to be addressed, and we do not perhaps have the tools. perhaps it is in redefining our definitions and our code. perhaps mr. schwitzer could talk to that. i do not know. you were, i think. were you intending to say something? it seemed to me that mr. starr covered the topic. i was just going to speak to the intent of the umu district, would you mind doing that? so that everybody has a strong grounding on that? i would appreciate if you would. sure, sure, i'd be happy to. as mr. starr said, the umu district is not is not a residential district in the same sense of
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even a neighborhood commercial district. it is truly a mixed use district. it was land that was zoned purely industrial and then through the eastern neighborhoods process, we created this district to allow residential uses to enter an industrial district and create a truly mixed use district. and it was always intended to have, you know, pdr uses and industrial uses and lab uses and other uses continue to sit side by side. and for those seeking a purely residential context, moving into the umu district may not be the right. you know, the right block to move on to. these were really intended. these are the sort of the transition zones between industrial districts and more purely residential districts. they are the truly mixed use districts and so to start carving out some of the non residential uses to pull them back is to is really to rethink what the whole nature, what the whole purpose of a umu district is to begin with. so good. thank you i appreciate that. what do you mind? yeah. please, i'd like to. laurel arvanitakis. i'd. i'd like to address your questions
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about, your statement about covid leakage, all of these. any lab that has any, any sort of, infections requires bsl licensing, which goes through a number of state and federal organizations in the united states, something that would have something like ebola or like that would be bsl four. it would only be owned by the government. it would not be in downtown san francisco. the kinds of labs you're seeing in san francisco are going for bsl one and bsl two licensing, like the high school science lab has bsl licensing. these are they're much smaller. they're it's not it's highly regulated by the federal and state government and not through land use through other laws, in building code. so i think i while that may be a fear, i am confident that that a
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bsl four lab could not be licensed in the umu area simply because of the makeup of the area around it. i appreciate that i'm familiar with with the classifications between bsl one and bsl four. ultimately, the devil is in the detail and it i. and again, i believe that perhaps zoning is not the right tool. there are communities like cambridge, massachusetts, which has basically, leaned to the side of having a more safety overview, overlaps as as a way to deal with community concerns about lab safety and i'm not an expert exactly how that can be achieved, i read about it and felt that there are other people trying to explore other frontiers. the one other issue, and that is more architectural, urban animation issue, is the fact that lab buildings mostly are inward looking, inward looking buildings. when i need
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to go and pick up a crown from my dental lab, i'm walking basically by a blank wall because it's an interior oriented use and the community that is potrero hill, and i'm not speaking for them, but that that is one concern that i, a member, also spoke about the lack of participation with street life as it becomes a more increased, larger use. they would have liked to see some forms of animation being acquired by planning, perhaps, of how to design and make these buildings more in, quote, pedestrian friendly of how they show their face to the street. so nobody is here to repeat of what they said regarding the indiana street lab, and i am actually perhaps not going to, to vote for disapproval because perhaps i expect, the department to spend more time with, supervisor walton to really get
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to the bottom of what we are supposed to disapprove or approve here. and, commissioner, if i just may to that point, we would be more than happy to sit down with supervisor's office to get a better understanding to date, we have not had a willingness to have a more in-depth conversation. and, as you know, legislative, legislation that's transmitted from the board of supervisors has a 90 day clock for it to be heard by the planning commission. this is the last hearing to have before the 90 day clock is up. so unless the supervisor gave us an extension, which he has not, this is the we've run out of time to have that conversation. we have tried unsuccessfully with the supervisor to try to get at the further intent. so it's this is this is it. this is the only opportunity we have. could you answer for me one question, miss ward? and that is, aren't the supervisors already on recess? so they're not even here? is that my proper understanding? are they still here? i would i would have to defer to folks in city hall or maybe laurel can answer. she's probably more. or aaron, this week they're still
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in session, so i called the office and there was nobody there. okay anyway, thank you. commissioner imperial, thank you, and thank you for all the comments, because it does come up, i with with the staff recommendation and with this legislation that is being in front of us, you know, a big, you know, any recommendation by the staff, you know, we usually the plan i know that the planning department does its analysis. and at the same time, we would like to hear what the supervisor's office as part of their analysis or what their, you know, what they're hearing from their neighborhood or from their district as well, so i do take precaution in a way of doing a recommendation of disapproval without those analysis that would make me more informed about my decision. the
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racial social equity analysis is something i do find that i wish that the department could have explored more, the way we look into the racial socioeconomic analysis in part of this is more about the land use, how the pdr is going to, in a way of competing land uses, of pdr and how it affects the job, employment. however, it does not look into the other parts of the you know, when you look into the map, the, you know, the commercial districts, the residential, you know, the access to parks, and also and i, you know, again, we're only speculating at this point of what the supervisors concern, and i'm speculating as well, that perhaps his concern is about the impact of it in terms of the residents or the real estate market or the housing real estate market, perhaps, that we don't have analysis of
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that of the biotech, and its impact, perhaps, perhaps the issue is it's going to be kind of a bust economy as well as the, at the dotcom market. again, i do not know the biotech market. and, you know, and i do appreciate all the scientists that coming over here. but at the same time, san francisco has a general we are put in a predicament of economic crisis as well. and so in order to do that, i feel like we also have to do our thorough analysis of what it means, not just economically, but in the fabric of our of our city, because we're creating, we've created a big part of it. and i'll go back the central soma, it was zoned for office developments. and now all of those offices are vacant, and we're doing that kind of rezoning in response to the market, but we're not doing it in a in response on what would
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it look like, what it would mean to the residents and to the fabric of neighborhood. i appreciate the conversation that we had during the 700 indiana street, because we actually made, you know, during that process, there were a lot of conversation for them, for public engagement, community engagement. and that's what we would like to see that these kind of companies are coming here, are going to integrate into the fabric of social of san francisco neighborhood and at the same time not displace, not further displace, current residents at the same time. and those are very big issues that we're dealing with here. and that's why i am very cautionary about the disapproval and i'm and i'm also i'm also going to share my frustration that i wish a supervisor could have given us more explanation about this. but yeah, but that's where i stand. thank you, commissioner mcgarry.
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hello, everybody. there's no better example of progress than science. and thank you for all coming out here today, lab work and sign science will create opportunity for the community as a whole. local community as well, not to mention my day job is, is a business agent for the carpenters union. so from a community standpoint, 700 indiana, mission bay and all that work puts hundreds of people to work local hire, wages, benefits, working conditions, health care for not just the people working on it, but their family, their families as well. so, investment in a community defines a community and makes a community what it i. and the more investment any community can get, and if there's a concerns of this community being disenfranchized by that, i think investment,
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basically overrides those concerns. so for that reason, i would be recommending the staff recommendations. was that a motion i would there we already have a motion that has been seconded. but if that concludes commissioner deliberation, there is a motion that has been seconded to adopt a recommendation for disapproval on that motion. commissioner mcgarry i for disapproval, commissioner. so i commissioner williams. nay, commissioner braun i commissioner. imperial. no. commissioner more. no. and commission. president diamond i so moved commissioners that motion passes 4 to 3 with commissioners william imperial and more voting against. and let's take a ten minute break before the final item. welcome
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back to the san francisco planning commission hearing for thursday, august 1st, 2024. commissioners, we left off under your regular calendar on the final item on your agenda today, number 16, case number 2023 hyphen 010863 coa for the property at 400 through 402 murray street, a conditional use authorization. good afternoon. commission president diamond and commissioners. welcome. commissioner mcgarry. i'm maggie louch, planning department staff presenting a request for conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code sections 303 and 317 for the removal of an unauthorized dwelling unit, or udu, at 400 to 402 murray street in an rh two zoning district and the bernal heights special use district. the property contains a three story residential structure with two legal dwelling units, one at
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the second floor and one at the third. the ground floor is divided into two garages, one of which was converted into a you.do. the project would remove the cooking facilities and restore the garage to its former use as off street parking. no other exterior alterations are proposed. the udu was first brought to the department's attention as the result of a dbi notice of violation and a planning enforcement case was opened in october 2017 to abate the violation. a permit was filed to legalize the udu, but that stalled after planning approved it in january 2020. and then it kind of stalled during buildings review of that project in november 2023. the subject application was submitted proposing to remove the udu instead of legalize it as a new unit. the udu is not currently occupied. in the past ten years it saw a single tenant, a close relative of the property owners, occupied the udu from february
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to december of 2017. that was the only tenant the unit ever saw. as described in the staff report, the department received one comment from a neighbor who inquired about the project and our udu removal policies, but did not express support or opposition to the project itself. the project is, on balance, consistent with the policies of the general plan, although it wouldn't result in the legalization of the unauthorized unit as net new housing. the space has only been rented by family members within the ten years preceding the application. the department also finds the project to be necessary, desirable and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and not to be detrimental to persons or adjacent properties in the vicinity. it meets the requirements of the planning code and conforms with the residential design guidelines, so the department recommends approval. this concludes my presentation. it's a short one, but i'm here for questions and i will now hand over to the project sponsor. project sponsor, you have five minutes.
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good afternoon commissioners, farewell, president diamond. and welcome president mcgarry, i heard an accent with you. i'm from scotland originally. i'm michael hanna from mimic architecture. i've been doing architecture in the city for 20 years now, and among my design projects, i also like to help out local citizens in need that maybe don't understand the very complicated planning and dbi process that they can face when they seek a permit in this city, i've listened to two very big issues in the previous items that you're wrestling with, and i think they're very important. and i think this project can serve as a very good window in to the everyday reality that
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sometimes is really happening beyond all the big ideas about forces and economy and jobs and all these things. this is an example of, well, i was brought on to this, a year ago to help the client who, went into the planning department crying after years of turmoil and confusion about this case. and in summary and from what i can glean from my participation in the project, this is an example of the weaponization of the very important, successful adu and authorized unit sort of legislation. what i mean by that is that this building is co-owned by, a cousin to cousins, the unit in question
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are below the unit in question, in the garage in the lower level where there's almost no light, because it's dug into the ground. it's just received daylight at the garage door, and the darks light. well, to the to the east. but what happened was the, the family who are from the middle east, the mother came to stay. there was a husband and wife in that unit. they put a kitchen very foolishly, put a kitchen downstairs in the lower level behind the garage, without any of the human habitation, light and ventilation requirements that you would need for a comfortable unit. and how someone lived down there. i'm not quite sure. but to call it a unit or a, you know, a habitable unit is, is a bit of a stretch. and unfortunately, the couple in question, the part owners of the
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building, separated, and it appears that the complainant was the former husband and the people left holding the bag, the wife and the cousin next door who owned the building. received in 2017, the enforcement action. and through a series of, you know, not fully understanding the enforcement action and obviously the unit was unauthorized and that had to be corrected. they were, they ignorantly, albeit thought that they were being forced to put a unit in. and unfortunately, the architects that they hired previously and paid them many thousands of dollars and never told them that they had options. the city staff never told them or weren't clear. it might have
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been in the documentation, but it wasn't clear that there were options and they went through 6 or 7 years. it would look like of paying architects, paying all these, trying to deal with worrying about the fines, doing all these things until they got my name. and i informed them that, no, they have a right to propose a project that isn't legalizing a unit. and paying almost half $1 million. they don't have, they're both, by the way, the cousin and the wife that are in the unit still, they're both city employees, one works for muni and one works in the finance department. i believe in this building. and she was just at a loss. and mohammed, the her cousin, was at a huge loss. and they were worried that they were being forced to shell out $500,000 or 400,000 as the construction cost. but once you pay
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architects, engineers permit fees, you're talking half $1 million. they were under the impression that they were compelled by law almost to build this unit, that they didn't want to thank you, sir, but that is your time. that's enough. okay. yeah. i think if the commissioners have questions, they'll they'll call you back. okay. with that, commissioners, we should open up public comment. members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. if you're in the chambers, you need to come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. and this matter is now before you commissioners. question for staff. just just can i help just to confirm, no tenants were ever evicted. and they only people who ever lived here were family members. and one of the factors that the code allows us to, take into account when making, this decision is whether or not it was limited. the use was limited
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to family members. yes. that's correct. so the new findings under section 317 for the removal of a you-do are were there evictions, there. the rent board records show a 2007 owner move in eviction for a one of the legal units on the property unrelated to the unauthorized dwelling unit. i don't even know if it was the same ownership at that time. there were no evictions related to the you-do, and then the second finding is who lived in the unit and specifically it talks about family, a direct sort of up or down relationship, parent child, things of that nature. thank yo. i don't have a problem with granting the see you, but i'm curious to hear what others say, vice president moore, i believe that mr. hanna just, i believe that mr. hanna's description fully explains the complicated but simple background of what is
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happening here. the plans are evident that there was no really attempt other than using a space which you think you could use, not understanding. perhaps the codes and the procedures that go with it. and i'm in full support and would approve with conditions. that is a motion. second. there's nothing further. commissioners. there is a motion that's been seconded to approve this matter with conditions on that motion. commissioner geary i commissioner. so i commissioner williams i commissioner braun i commissioner imperial i commissioner moore i and commissioner president diamond i so moved commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0 final one all.
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[♪♪♪] >> i just don't know that you can find a neighborhood in the city where you can hear music stands and take a ride on the low rider down the street. it is an experience that you can't have anywhere else in san francisco. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] >> district nine is a in the southeast portion of the city. we have four neighborhoods that i represent. st. mary's park has a completely unique architecture. very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in san
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francisco. the bernal heights district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views in all of san francisco. there is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. it is as if you are swinging over the entire city. there are two unique aspects. it is considered the fourth chinatown in san francisco. sixty% of the residents are of chinese ancestry. the second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. there is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. not only for san francisco but for the region. and of course, it is the location in mclaren park which is the city's second biggest park after golden gate. many people don't know the neighborhood in the first place if they haven't been there. we call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. where we are right now is the
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mission district. the mission district is a very special part of our city. you smell the tacos at the [speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. they have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. and then you walk further down and you have sunrise café. it is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. >> twenty-fourth street is the birthplace of the movement. we have over 620 murals. it is the largest outdoor public gallery in the country and possibly the world. >> you can find so much political engagement park next to so much incredible art. it's another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [♪♪♪]
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>> it was formed in 2014. we had been an organization that had been around for over 20 years. we worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. so the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. >> in the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the mission district have been displaced from their community. we all know that the rising cost of living in san francisco has led to many people being displaced. lower and middle income all over the city. because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip public transportation, has, has made it very popular. >> it's a struggle for us right
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now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets of values and different culture. there is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. there are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesn't completely erase the communities. we try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more equitable development in the area. >> you need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. the people on the businesses that came before you. you need to dialogue and show respect. and then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing the old. [♪♪♪] >> i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. so we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain
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types of services that pertain more to the local community and working-class. >> back in the day, we looked at mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. this is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. we created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. that is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. we have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [♪♪♪] ♪♪
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>> san francisco! ♪♪ >> this is an exhibition across departments highlighting different artworks from our collection. gender is an important part of the dialogue. in many ways, this exhibition is contemporary. all of this artwork is from the 9th century and spans all the way to the 21st century. the exhibition is organized into seven different groupings or themes such as activities, symbolism, transformation and others.
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it's not by culture or time period, but different affinities between the artwork. activities, for example, looks at the role of gender and how certain activities are placed as feminine or masculine. we have a print by uharo that looks at different activities that derisionly performed by men. it's looking at the theme of music. we have three women playing traditional japanese instruments that would otherwise be played by men at that time. we have pairings so that is looking within the context of gender in relationships. also with how people are questioning the whole idea of pairing in the first place. we have three from three different cultures, tibet, china and japan. this is sell vanity stot relevar
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has been fluid in different time periods in cultures. sometimes being female in china but often male and evoking features associated with gender binaries and sometimes in between. it's a lovely way of tying all the themes together in this collection. gender and sexuality, speaking from my culture specifically, is something at that hasn't been recently widely discussed. this exhibition shows that it's gender and sexuality are actually have been considered and complicated by dialogue through the work of artists and thinking specifically, a sculpture we have of the hindu
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deities because it's half pee male and half male. it turns into a different theme in a way and is a beautiful representation of how gender hasn't been seen as one thing or a binary. we see that it isn't a modest concept. in a way, i feel we have a lot of historical references and touch points throughout all the ages and in asian cultures. i believe san francisco has close to 40% asian. it's a huge representation here in the bay area. it's important that we awk abouk about this and open up the discussion around gender. what we've learned from organizing this exhibition at the museum is that gender has been something that has come up in all of these cultures through all the time periods as something that is important and relevant. especially here in the san
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like most immigrant families, my parents wanted a better life for us. my dad came out here first. i think i was almost two-years-old when he sent for us. my mom and myself came out here. we moved to san francisco early on. in the mission district and moved out to daily city and bounced back to san francisco. we lived across the street from the ups building. for me, when my earliest memories were the big brown trucks driving up and down the street keeping us awake at night. when i was seven-years-old and i'm in charge of making sure we get on the bus on time to get to school. i have to make sure that we do our homework. it's a lot of responsibility for a kid. the weekends were always for family. we used to get together and whether we used to go watch a movie at the new mission theater and then afterwards going to kentucky fried chicken. that was big for us. we get kentucky fried chicken on sunday. whoa! go crazy! so for me, home is having
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something where you are all together. whether it's just together for dinner or whether it's together for breakfast or sharing a special moment at the holidays. whether it's thanksgiving or christmas or birthdays. that is home. being so close to berkley and oakland and san francisco, there's a line. here you don't see a line. even though you see someone that's different from you, they're equal. you've always seen that. a rainbow of colors, a ryan bow of personalities. when you think about it you are supposed to be protecting the kids. they have dreams. they have aspirations. they have goals. and you are take that away from them. right now, the price is a hard fight. they're determined. i mean, these kids, you have to applaud them.
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their heart is in the right place. there's hope. i mean, out here with the things changing everyday, you just hope the next administration makes a change that makes things right. right now there's a lot of changes on a lot of different levels. the only thing you hope for is for the future of these young kids and young folks that are getting into politics to make the right move and for the folks who can't speak. >> dy mind motion. >> even though we have a lot of fighters, there's a lot of voice less folks and their voiceless because they're scared. >> hello, and thank you to the n
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