but if the planning commission receives any evidence of misleading information that has been submitted as part of the application, you can under section 3 or 3 under conditional uses conditional use abatement requests that the matter be brought back before you by a majority vote of the commission. so it would require four votes of this commission to bring back something that you feel there is enough evidence to suggest that there was misleading information presented as part of your review and then you would rehear the matter. it could be brought up as a revocation hearing to revoke your previous approval or your previous disapproval for that matter and take action however you see fit. okay, but just a gentle reminder that the project is not on your agenda today for discussion you can speak in

general terms about things but so to me i think this requires some further discussion. i don't know how others feel about this but i think there's some some questions and i don't want to get too far into it about you know, how how we can make sure that this doesn't happen again. and i know that some of that has to do with planning and who's who's working with the bayview hunters point neighborhood from planning i think there's some you know, there's not enough communication and support for the bayview. i'm concerned about all of that stuff. absolutely. and i'll just say just since this is a great platform, our bayview community advisory committee that we staff actually our manager who oversees the bayview neighborhood in the current planning division staffs the bayview chc just informed us

that they've lost quorum because somebody quit the baby. obviously the bbc is a really important forum to be able to vet development projects and the idea is to you know have all of the different public projects that are happening get vetted their developmentt are va really important forum and they've just lost quorum. so if anyone also knows of anyone within the community who wants to sit on that bayview cic we would love to help put them in touch with the folks who do the appointments process but i think that a is a really critical component of getting representation and voices from the collective community heard because typically projects go to the baby cic before they come to the planning commission you know projects of size. so i think that's one thing that i think would be really, really helpful. we've been teetering on not having a quorum for a long time and we just officially hit not having a quorum. and then secondly yes, i think internally as staff we do need to and i've because it's not my

division i'm not quite as in the weeds with our community equity divisions staffing right now for the bayview but i do think we lost our last full time person who was working on the bay specifically on the bayview and i don't know what the current coverage is right now on that team but i've also again learning lessons here i think from all of this of the last week i've been working with our the manager who reports directly to me responsible in this area to really make sure they're having weekly communications with the supervisors office as it relates to development projects at least so that there is is a lot of sort of advanced notice about what's coming up, what's going on, what projects are coming in, what's up on the agenda and the next week or two weeks so that at least those you know, nothing's getting lost in the shuffle as it relates to that. but i hear your point about sort of the larger community equity division making sure that we've got folks sort of in the community part of the community from our department but i couldn't miss the opportunity for the plug for the baby chc because we need to get some some people on that so we can make quorum. >> i got you.

you know i'd like to you know, put something forward to continue this conversation so i'm not sure if that's two agenda is this matter for you know next week or another week i think it rises to that level certainly commissioner williams i would like to maybe perhaps hear all seems like we all want to say something about this and then we can collectively make a decision to put something on the agenda in the upcoming weeks. >> we have commissioner brown thank you. >> i just want to say first of all first of all, thank you to the supervisors office and the supervisor for bringing this concern to our attention and as well i really appreciate your assessment and review of what exactly happened and i agree with that assessment of the situation. you know, i looked through all my correspondence and everything. i didn't see these letters and when the project sponsor submitted their letter to me and the other commissioners you

know, i read it i did not read it as them claiming that there was support from the supervisors office for the project itself but rather for a prior grant application. however i can definitely see how the fact that the that letter of support for the grant application was raised repeatedly could be a confusing issue for anyone who hasn't read the exact wording of what they sent in the past or to listen to the exact wording of every sentence that they saw during the hearing. so you know, i, i agree with the broader sense that it's maybe not appropriate for the sponsor to have so overly emphasized that support for the grant application the sponsor did submit a follow up letter in response to the supervisor or in which they they you know, took responsibility, explained themselves as trying to just indicate general support. but nevertheless it's it's something that you know, for my part at that hearing i could see how it could be confusing

and so i'm going to hold myself accountable if i see that situation unfolding and and try to do a better job of asking questions for clarification about what exactly is being discussed during the hearing i do like the sort of internal policy change here that's been stated as far as ensuring staff are clear about letters that are received or not received about whether the letters are directly about the project and to continue not circulating letters that are not addressed directly to the commission or directly about the project. so i really appreciate the responsiveness here and it's something i'm i'm just going to continue to keep an eye on myself. >> thank you, commissioner mcgarry and i agree with all our all my fellow commissioners but i would like to say and alleviates supervisor walton's office that my vote last week i did differentiate the difference between a grant and

application for a grant and the project. we were here for the project and yes you can twist it but we we were still here for the project that was brought forth and basically it is there to look after up at risk youth within the bayview. so that's is what i voted on if it was twisted or it seems to be twisted in in the ways that was my vote last week but it was it was definitely for the project and to get that place open as quickly as possible so they could serve the community . >> but if there is a commissioner williams emphasize there something else i want to know something i want to know what the something else is. >> i worked out of the bayview for 28 years just down the road from this and everyone's got my phone number and if there is something untoward or a little

odd i'd like to know about it. >> but otherwise we're here for the project and that's what i voted on last week. so thank you. >> thank you. commissioner mcgarry commissioner vice president amore i think this was one of those i think is one of the most difficult weeks i ever had thinking that something slipped our attention and sometimes it's so subtle that we don't even notice that it really means something slightly different and i did appreciate mswati really in the most sensitive way and so we take a part but we actually went through thinking that we had everything and it was really enforcing it gave us like bonds to support the project. guess what? so there's one essential thing we did not ask the my question that there's a difference between a grant grant and a full support for a project and that is where i personally felt that my racial and social equity lens was not quite as

focused or as quite up to. i've realized that there was perhaps something not quite accurate and again i embrace the letter of support which i never got i never got even a notification that there was something else and said okay, there is something we can how hang our hat on and believe it's really the thing we need to support and unfortunately it came out a little differently. i want to acknowledge and recognize mswati for the sensitivity by which he for me has instilled great trust in the service of the department and i say that very honestly because again to repeat you taking it apart for every aspect of what you do and what we trust you do. so there's no doubt in my mind that the department has little or nothing to do with this but it's a kind of like a domino effect of things that over the course of 2 or 3 years just basically went unobserved and i

would support an ongoing discussion for us specific to the project but generally to how we improve and ourselves participate with more awareness ,ask questions before we even meet and called appliances that something missing here just to ensure ourselves that everything is soundproof and ready to go. i want to leave it without supporting an ongoing discussion and thank everybody for just standing up for what happened last week. thank you very much. vice president moore i really appreciate everyone actually give such a serious thought about this and it is very important that as a planning department we need to recognize and do culturally and equitable outreach that's not just to the community but also to our supervisors office and in this regard i had conversation with supervisor walton oh, is he

supportive of this organization mission? yes. no doubt he is supportive of this organization's mission to help uplift youth in the bayview and hunters point. but had he felt personally being mis represented absolutely so in this regard i am with my fellow commissioner that we like to continue to have some candid dialog either to a gender item to to talk about how our department already have a really robust communication protocol established with our supervisors and the project sponsors but can there be room for improvement? absolutely right. so let's reconvene and finger about what will be the most effective way to continue to address and improve among ourselves so then we can foster

a better communication and trust between project sponsors, supervisors office and our department staff. and also i had to comment on what commissioner imperial mentioned regarding to the fourth street rail yards misrepresentation is by no means really importantly do not encourage. so i would like to say moving forward including our staff or even specifically project sponsors when you're in doubt to ask a questions about who have you outreach have you talked to a specific group if you actually was unsure please just state that you need more time to check and get back to us so then we can avoid the snowball effect from continuing it and then yeah we would like to take that opportunity to advertise the bayview. cac definitely need your help to represent if you do live in

that district and you have interests to serve and represent your community so make sure that your voice are being heard. please reach out to list wati and thank you and my fellow commissioner i know you would like to have a closing statement on this. >> no, i have clarification and so on in terms of bringing having having this particular agenda is in the future calendar just wondering whether are we talking about the project in itself or in terms of general communication really open for any project start coming in to bayview? >> i just want that clarification. yeah well i have been following up with everybody's concern. it sound like it's more of about the communications moving forward of how we can hold ourselves more diligent in be able to discern over when all these materials come in front

of us maybe perhaps make a point of when should the staff actually eliminate unnecessary confusion information that come in front of us. so that will give us a much more fair approach to the project. >> absolutely. and maybe if i can make a suggestion on that if that's sort of the direction that folks are looking in, you know, we are always looking at ways for, you know, striking that fine balance between sort of streamlining our packets and the information that we provide to you. and so big part of that is public commentary while also not streamlining out the important things. and it is a delicate balance because we very much recognize if we send you guys a 60 page staff report it's really difficult to get through every nuance detail every week when that's multiplied by several projects and so it's a constant sort of balance that we're doing. >> i would certainly love if there is a you know, subset of you all that are really interested in you know, making

sure that the information that we put in our staff reports is excessive all the different types of communities that's culturally competent like the way we write our staff reports to make sure people kind of get it because there is a lot of jargon, there is a lot of technical information and so it's a little more than just the the communication with with communities. but i do think it all leads back to how are we talking about development projects and making sure that people are understanding but then also we're relaying people's understandings about the projects to you all accurately . so if that is sort of of interest and maybe sort of strikes the interest of what you guys are kind of getting at here, i would be more than happy to, you know, not have it be we don't need to do a subcommittee that you know, if there is a non quorum quantity of you that are especially interested in this i'm happy to set up offline some separate time to have conversations with with you on what you think could be improved as it relates to like our packets and our all of that stuff. commissioner williams, you

wanted to weigh in on this? >> yeah, i just want to add to bring up that i'd like to hear from the supervisor himself and have have him have some input on how we move forward. so i'm not exactly sure how we do that but i think that's an important thing that we haven't really talked about. >> i mean i think we can absolutely commit it. i think what one of the takeaways from this is that we need to sit down face to face with the supervisors office and establish a very clear strategy for communication moving forward to make sure that there are no minced words. everyone's aware of projects. we understand their department are there their their offices take on a project, right? all of those things i think we feel like we've tried but i've absolutely heard that there may be some disconnects and so i think that's probably a next step. i don't think that needs to take place in these chambers.

i think that's probably a better conversation for our office to have with them to figure out how we can improve communications moving forward so we absolutely can commit to doing that or overcoming some commissioner or vice president more i would also ask if we are expanding the discussion of fellow commissioners as well as mswati i would like the city attorney to advise us generally of procedural matters and very clear defined parameters in which that conversation can be generic and if anybody has a need for it to be project specific to advise us of how we should do that. this is a novelty. i have only been once involved in a vote which was actually rescinded was an hour or two but we have never really had discovery and potential easily

somebody felt well we need to relook at the project and i'm not saying that we should do that but i would like generically to understand from city attorney of what uncharted waters we would get ourselves into. >> sure. deputy city attorney austin yang as the as the secretary mentioned, there are provisions in the planning code section 3o3 that provide for reconsideration or abatement of a conditional use criteria for that includes falsehoods or i don't have a section in front of me but misrepresentation and the commission can only modify or rescind a previously approved conditional use through the same mechanism so you would have to agendas and notice the exact same type of action and provide an opportunity to reconsider the conditional use that you had previously approved.

and and you know as a reminder this would be about the use of the property as commissioner mcgarry mentioned. >> you know, sort of separate and aside from anything about a grant, you know, this would be about legitimately the the proposed use that was in front of the commission last week if you wanted to consider more generally you wouldn't be bound necessarily by the conditional use limitations and you could have a broader discussion sort of as you been having here but you know i think that as mcquarrie has articulated you know, i think there's been a lot of feedback for the department to take back and to consider and maybe report back at a future meeting. >> thank you. >> commissioner williams i'd like to put forward a motion to rehear to see you. i would defer to secretary but

i believe that the time for future matters is in 1 or 2 agenda items. >> well we're still on item six for commission comments and questions which includes future meetings but i would need to hear a second to from the another member of the commission to even call a vote michelmore i personally would have to have our discussions first and ground myself a little bit more in all aspects that come into play here including speaking to the supervisor himself to give us a little bit more guidance about the background of this project. this project came completely new to us. it had support to another location. why didn't you support it then and now it's not so there's a whole bunch of intricacies that i don't want to skip over in order to make a responsible decision to hear it or not. and again it's ultimately about land use, land use so layered and with the proper facts that constitutes a full background

to the project. >> so the commissioners i'm going to caution this body one more time that we've reached a level of discussion on a specific topic that is not agenda ised if you wish to agenda as a general topic or even a specific topic to have a more in-depth conversation about this i suggest we agendas it for the next hearing or future hearing after staff maybe meets with the officers to have a conversation but we've reached a level of discussion on a met on a topic that is not on your agenda today so may i suggest we will put this as an agenda to continue to discuss this topic next week? >> would it be a commissioner mcgarry yes. >> you want to say something so i need to be clear on this. is there is there an objection to to this parties advancing this last week the project as a

whole the project is not being i'm not hearing that's an objection to our decision last week what i'm hearing is that there might be an informational or an interpretation of information how it's coming but nothing about the project itself has the projects by supervisor walton's office as supervisor walton's office objected to to us putting this advancing this commissioners i'm going to again caution that this this item is not on your agenda today for discussion and if you would like to discuss this matter, i suggest you put it on the agenda next week or for future hearing there's a motion i just want to make sure that the motion actually lines up with what we're actually the motion i believe is to schedule the conditional use authorization for the project to be reconsidered by the planning commission. >> no, no, that was what the motion was made. >> i did not hear a second so i'll take that all. i'll rescind that motion if you're willing to make a motion

to continue i think now we're going to have a new motion is to put this particular topic to continue for our commission discussion for next week not necessarily bring back the project yet. >> i missed it. >> we need more time. well i think there's i think you need a motion. >> we'll put it on again. okay. we want to invite him on it right. >> there seems to be consensus from an information. >> do we need to second it? we don't know. okay. i mean i guess i'm trying to. hillis yeah. thank you. sorry. i don't know. i wasn't here for the discussion so you may want to have a motion to do and see maybe there are a lot of there are some questions if there was dissent perhaps maybe we can just be crystal clear. it sounded like there was a motion to, you know, schedule a resumption for the project and we could not get a second correct.

>> we then have conversation that we want to have a larger conversation about the department's communication strategies, particularly in the bayview and how those can be improved in the future and it sounded like there was interest of further that conversation around how we can improve communicationse this don't happn in the future etc. in the abstract are not specific to this project, is that correct? >> i think maybe in the partially incorrect year that after that debriefing some of my commission or my would like to keep that opportunity to to be able to present the c you know i said we wanted to get more input direct input from supervisor wharton's office if there's anything we missed write better understand why this was in the first place. >> so you're saying if if if we missed any land use or anything just is basically informative open up to discussion what did we miss hearing from you and that is kind of like all i want to do is that does not mean

that that automatically means that i'm trying to tee it up for presentation was whatever the word is and i just believe we need to have that that openness it maybe if i could suggest one alternative path is and this won't happen tomorrow or next week but similar to the meetings we've had on the mission in the mission although there was a motion action plan in the tenderloin there was a general action plan you know we can we can schedule a hearing on kind of third street in the bayview. we can talk about the just report that that that's that's happening to the cultural district so there could be a hearing just broadly about that bayview some of the projects that are happening within the broader neighborhood like the shipyard and candlestick and certainly this could be a topic we talked about we'd want time to prep for that but similar to other neighborhoods where we've had a hearing about kind of

issues perhaps things you want to see happen, we can do that as well. >> just want to chime in. yes, i i think there let's start with a broad topic. we are and we've had we've done this before where there's a broad topic and we ended up also mentioning particular projects through that so i don't see it different and we can also again invite the the supervisor in that in that conversation too. but you know for me i like to see in terms of the broad pattern the broad one in what we're what's the planning department doing in terms of the baby hunters point neighborhood and also you know how how are we actually improving those those communication relation the outreach, the community engagement that we're doing the baby i mean there's a lot of things to cover in the be of

you hunters point the baby cac at the same time too so i'd like to start with a broad one and of course we can discuss this particular topic about 4100 third street and set that as an example. >> i'd like to see it in that way how we do the hearing but yeah okay commissioners if there's any other comment or question other than supervisor walton's letter seeing none we can move on to item seven election of officers in accordance with the rules and regulations of the planning commission, the president and vice president of the commission shall be elected at the first regular meeting of the commission held on or after the 15th day of january of each year. so maybe before we begin we open up for public comment members of the public this is your opportunity to address the commission on the election of officers again, you need to

come forward seeing none public comment is closed. this matter is now before you commissioners commissioner imperial i'd like to nominate president so as president and vice president moore as vice president i second that there's nothing further commissioners there's a motion that has been seconded to elect commissioners so as president and commissioner moore as vice. >> on that motion, commissioner campbell i mr. mcgarry i was in williams i was shannon braun i commissioner imperial high commissioner moore in commission president so i so move commissioners that motion passes unanimously 7 to 0. congratulations to you both. we can move on now to department matters item eight

directors announcements and i think from item nine review of past events of the board of supervisors board of appeals and the historic preservation commission. >> good afternoon commissioners and happy new year. >> sorry i wasn't able to join you last week. i want to start off by updating you on a sex appeal that happened last year before winter recess on december 17th the board supervisors heard a sequel appeal for a category exemption for a project at 1719 wallace avenue. commissioners originally heard this as a conditional use on october 10th of last year and approved the conditional use application. the project would allow the establishment of an industrial agricultural use for the purposes of cannabis cultivation and an existing one storey industrial building within the pdr one b zoning district. the appellant the appellant was filed by barbara tassa a neighbor and several individuals spoke in favor of the appeal. following the public comment period supervisor walton introduced a motion to deny the appeal and affirmed the gallagher exemption which was

seconded by supervisor preston. the vote passed on a 9 to 0 vote with supervisor chan excused. >> also the temporary committee assignments for land use committee came out last week and it included supervisor melgar as the chair supervisor mahmood and supervisor fielder. we should know the permanent members by next week if we don't already but i believe most if not all the temporary members will remain. so this week at the land use committee they considered supervisor mel ga's ordinance that would allow health service uses to exceed the maximum use size on one parcel and the western west portal neighborhood commercial district. commissioners heard this item on december 5th of last year and adopted a recommendation of approval at the hearing. supervisor melgar indicated her openness to working on a more holistic approach to this issue as was recommended by planning staff but that there was a need to get this ordinance passed as soon as possible. supervisor mahmud indicated that he would support an ordinance to support the

ordinance given its time sensitive nature but that he would have preferred seeing a more holistic approach. there were no public comments and the committee voted two for the item to the full board with a positive recommendation. then at the full board this week the board considered the 30 van sued for its second read. however, instead of passing it on second read supervisor dorsey proposed amendments that would change the required inclusionary rates to match the rates in planning code section 415. the amendments made by supervisor peskin that the land use committee last year included inclusionary rates slightly higher than the standard rates. the amendments were passed unanimously and the amended ordinance then passed on first read unanimously. >> and that's all i have for you today. thanks. okay. i have no report from the board of appeals but the historic preservation commission did meet in these chambers yesterday and they considered

several legacy business registry applications. the first was for cha cha cha on 1801 haight street, the golden gate park band on 75 hughey war teagarden drive city optics at 2154 chestnut street and what was the last one? oh the san francisco flower mart on 16th street where they adopted recommendations for approval for all four of those applications. further they heard the north beach national register historic district. they received a lot of positive support as well as frustration. i think from impacted property owners that there was not any outreach performed. i will only say that the

national historic district nomination was repaired by a private consultant and submitted to the state of california office of historic preservation and an r capacity as a certified local. the city and county is only afforded a 60 day window to review. so this was not our application that was put forward or a district that was being proposed by the planning department or the historic preservation commission. and so provided us with very limited time for to review even this will be heard on february 7th of this year and all comments are due to the state by january 31st 2025. finally they considered the project that five nominations i should say they considered the project they considered the preservation alternatives for the sequa document at 530 sansom and 447 battery street which is a recognized landmark in san francisco and their conversation surrounded concern

about establishing any precedent of rescinding landmark status by ordinance and how that might impact other landmarks in the future because that was what the project would afford. but there purview was the preservation alternatives. if there are no questions commissioners we can move on to general public comment. at this time members of the public may address the commission and 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 numbers speakers exceed the 15 minute limit general public comment may be moved to the end of the agenda . if you have any general public comment you need to come forward seeing none. general public communist closed

and we move on to your regular calendar commissioners for item ten. case number 2020 hyphen 009640. otoh with the racial and social equity action plan this is an informational presentation i. >> good afternoon commissioners. good afternoon president so i am carlota meza with the community equity division and i'm excited to be here today to present on our racial and social equity action plan. i'm also honored to be joined by several members of our equity advisory council here in the chambers including dale seymour who is our respected tenderloin community leader. >> dale will make opening statements before we begin the presentation and then equity council members will follow up the presentation first of all.

good afternoon. thanks for having us. historically i've been in this room many, many years. i'm usually yelling and screaming. today i'm here to celebrate. today i'm here to thank you all for realizing that we need community input from this building. from this room. from this department. a lot of our people it annoyed are scared of the planning commission. and that's why because we don't know who you are. we don't know what you do. so you have given us a chance to share who you are and what you do. some of the wonderful things that you do for our communities because this is about output to the community. i wish we could host this meeting in the 2 in 1 day. that would be that. we also do planning

department's equity panel. i think last month. >> but we would love to host you all so you could see who we are because a lot of people maybe including some of you get the idea that the tenderloin you get the idea from the tenderloin, from fox news or some of these other nuts. and we're not there. the majority of the problems that we have to tell are not us. >> we are the community. we get up and go to work every morning just like you all do. >> we have kids. we take to school every morning just like you all do just like the folks in the valley. but we get beat down by fox news there within our community. so when they present us on the national this city on a national scale it's the city of san francisco and the tenderloin. >> and we're not we are part of san francisco. so now you have given us a chance to show you who we are. >> our community is especially our black and brown members of the community feel that the

only time we are highlighted is when some of us do something wrong. >> never were highlighted for doing something good. we're never honored. you know we started as one project and i'm part of tenderloin blackness. to shout out to the black leaders and ballers and rollers in the tenderloin to thank them for their efforts and their leadership. and we happened to mention that to a woman who was in a tent and she says what about me? and we said yeah, let's highlight you. and with tears in her eyes she says i'm 38 years old and nobody ever highlighted me in my life. and now we got on the big poster board at our exhibit. we've done exhibits at the tenderloin museum at the other museums. we're going to do one next month. and you see law oh, we got events that just gave you an example or two events we're having in the next couple of

days to get people proud to be in the tenderloin. i've been in it 38 years. don't have to be no more. but i'm here every day because i'm proud of the tenderloin. >> i'm not that person. fox news talks about and now we have gotten our community to feel the same way i do. >> we are not who fox news is talking about. >> we're legitimate citizens of this city no different than no valley pacific heights bayview . and we love me. we would love to be proud to say i live in it. >> enjoy. when i first got clean 15 years ago someone would ask me where i live. >> so feel. i was the same to say i lived in illinois. i'm not no more. >> and now to our efforts that you have provided for us. we've got a lot of other people who will stand up and say the same thing. i'm not ashamed to live in the tenderloin no more because i know i'm not who you all are talking about. and it's all about that.

we are a very close community all of community members are here. you see we all sit in one spot because we're close. we love each other. tim has a very unique, unique community. it's called a break off community. if you come to any one of us and ask us for a cigaret and we only got one left we break it out. >> coca-cola take half of my coke. i don't have another one. and we're so we're like you all in your neighborhood. you may see your neighbor down the street and you wave and i've been doing it for 20 years. you don't know that man. >> we know who we wave to because that's john. john's got three sons and he's got a daughter who's going through chemo. we know our neighbors because we don't have nobody else. so thanks again for your efforts. we will continue to be responsible. hopefully that we can continue this. and if we can't, we'll figure out a way to do it because we've found. finally we have got a neighbor neighborhood excited to be who

we are to be proud and not be a shame to be in this wonderful community. so thank you for your time and efforts. please let us continue to do this. i hope you are any time you want to have a meeting or sub meeting in the wonderful neighborhood called it in illinois. >> thank you. in 12 commissioners secretary can we have the screen please? >> so today we're here to present on our department's racial and social equity action plan highlighting the progress that we've made since its adoption and the work that lies ahead. >> primarily we're seeking your feedback on draft strategies that focus on our external community impacting work and these new sections complete the development of the plan and in march will return to this commission for adoption in 2020. >> this commission took a bold and necessary step by passing a resolution to center racial and social equity in planning.

>> this resolution acknowledges and apologizes for planning's role in racist policies that harmed black american, indian and other communities of color. >> policies like cause displacement, divestment, segregation and lasting inequities. >> it also commits the department to take transformative action enabling racial and social equity into our policies, programs and operations. >> your resolution holds us accountable with metrics to track progress and a commitment to collaborate with historically impacted communities to build a more equitable and inclusive future for our city. >> so now i'll provide some context as to why racial and social equity is important and what we've done to make progress on this work. >> san francisco's strength and vibrancy come from its diverse communities whose cultural economic and social contributions have shaped this city. >> black communities in the fillmore and the bayview and in the tenderloin have built san

francisco's legacy through music, business and activism. >> latino workers and the mission were essential during the pandemic leading community center public health efforts and keeping vital services running. >> the american indian community as the original stewards of this land remind us to honor its history and respect the land and their leadership in environmental justice and cultural preservation. guides us toward a more inclusive and sustainable future. >> the filipino communities resilience and leadership in health care, labor and civic engagement continue to strengthen our city. >> these are just a few examples of the generations of diverse communities that have been the foundation of san francisco's identity and continue to drive its resilience. >> san francisco is a city of innovation and progress. yet deep racial and economic disparities continue to exist and we know that all communities struggle with

meeting their basic needs. but black american, indian and communities of color struggle at much higher rates despite their contributions to the city's success. >> san francisco remains today segregated by race and wealth where opportunity is too often determined by zip code. >> and as we focus our attention on our road to recovery, it's important to remember that true recovery isn't just abo■aut economic growth. >> it's also about inclusion. and when all communities have access to housing, economic opportunity and vital services, the entire city thrives. >> addressing these disparities requires intentional action. our staff initiated these actions before the city even mandated this work and then you as commissioners passed a resolution providing us guidance on how to do this work . >> so i want to first shout shout out to all the staff who led this effort in its early stages their thoughtful and intentional work really laid

the foundation for where we are today. >> since our first equity training way back in 2016 we've made significant strides including the adoption of the first phase of our equity plan in 2019 and the creation of our community equity division and our equity advisory council that you see here today. >> we've reformed internal internal processes and developed tools and guidelines to support this work which i'll share in more detail in the next coming slides. >> and additionally we've conducted four staff culture surveys with the latest findings included in your commissioned materials. >> so our equity plan provides the framework to institutionalize and sustain our work to advance equity as a department. >> we're mandated by the office of racial and social equity like every city agency where required to implement a racial and social equity action plan to address systemic inequities in. and following our guidance the

current draft of our plan primarily focuses on addressing our internal operations. >> but today we're seeking your feedback to ensure the completed plan reflects and strengthens our external facing work as well. >> the first phase of the equity plan addresses areas like hiring recruitment promotion and retention, budget allocation and workforce culture. as we've been implementing our internal actions we've also been advancing equity through community partnerships cultural preservation and housing policy. >> so to capture the full scope of this work we're introducing two new sections called equitable planning and community engagement. these strategies are a combination of the work that we're already doing and partnership with communities as well as expanding to new initiatives for the next five years. >> we now have a completed equity plan which allows us to fully transition to

implementation and evaluation and progress monitoring and as a living document the equity plan will be adaptive to our department's capacity and evolving and adaptive to our city's evolving needs. >> so now i'll share some more details on the progress that we've made in the last five years. >> centering equity in our work requires rebuilding community, rebuilding trust with communities and engaging staff in a meaningful ways. >> the community equity division was established to strengthen partnerships with historically impacted communities and to ensure equity is central in how we plan develop our policies and serve the public. >> and internally staff surveys cultural celebrations and educational series foster cultural understanding and strengthen staff's ability to reflect the values of inclusion and share a commitment to equity. >> we're also striving for diversity in our staff and

leadership to reflect san francisco's communities bringing lived experiences that make our policies and initiatives more responsive to the city's needs and to support. >> so to support this we developed equitable h.r guidelines. we've expanded our expanded our internship recruitment to target local candidates in partnership with community organization boards and also equity requires dedicated resources which is why we've developed tools like the budget equity tool to ensure that resource allocations align with equity goals including contracting and staffing. >> equity also requires us to have effective tools to support our day to day processes. so we've developed an equity assessment tool to help staff assess project impacts while our equity dashboard tracks actions and measures progress. our pilot neighborhood data hub provides insights to help us address community specific needs and we've updated our

mission and vision statements. >> >> our new mission and vision statement now makes clear our commitment to advancing equity. >> san francisco planning shapes how land is used to meet community needs and guide our city's future. creating inclusive, sustainable and prosperous neighborhoods. >> we envision an equitable san francisco where everyone thrives a welcoming city that honors diverse cultures, provides secure housing, strengthens environmental resilience and drives economic stability for current and future generations. >> beyond our internal progress we've been advancing equity through inclusive decision making and housing access. the equity advisory council composed of community leaders ensures policies and investments reflect san francisco's diverse communities. with initiatives like their downtown equity vision, we've adopted the housing element 2022 update, which is the city's first housing plan

centered on racial and social equity. and since then we've worked with communities to elevate housing priorities and lead key initiatives to expand affordable housing funding, address exclusionary zoning and streamline production for grading greater housing access. we've also been advancing equity through our community driven planning and cultural preservation initiatives like our work in the tenderloin, the mission, the fillmore and work with the american indian community are rooted in partnerships where residents and local organizations take the lead in defining priorities for their neighborhoods. our community liaisons provide the support needed to turn those priorities into actionable solutions and community investments and cultural preservation. we're going beyond buildings by partnering with communities through efforts like the citywide cultural resource survey to identify historically and culturally significant places. >> our work on historic context statements help to capture the rich histories and lived

experiences of san francisco's communities. so as you see equity is a shared responsibility across the department. much of our phase one efforts have focused on our internal operations which were primarily led by our admin division. >> and as we transition to external strategies we're creating opportunities for all divisions to integrate their work to center equity. >> some of these new strategies that i am about to introduce are already underway. and then others are new which lay out a vision for how we want to advance equity over the next five years. >> so i'll provide a high level overview of the strategies the detailed actions are in your commission packet. >> we originally framed department functions for this new section but that was in our draft phase one plan. but goal ten equitable planning has evolved to better integrate the work of all divisions and clarify our vision for a more equitable city. >> so through these strategies

the department champions equitable land use practices that expand access to housing, economic opportunity and resilience. >> to achieve this we're advancing equitable housing through the implementation of the housing elements partnering with equity communities and cultural districts to support their community strategies, increase community representation and preservation planning. developing tools like the impact analysis guidelines and conducting an audit to address inequities in our planning code. >> and we're also promoting environmental justice through initiatives like the yosemite slew adaptation plan and raising awareness for climate resilience and vulnerable communities. >> building an equitable city begins with inclusive and accessible community engagement. >> the planning department is committed to expanding participation, strengthening community partnerships and ensuring that both staff and community have the tools to achieve meaningful outcomes together. >> to achieve this we want to provide training and resources

to staff to support more inclusive and culturally competent outreach and engagement, improve coordination with our department and our sister agencies, help communities navigate our processes by creating educational materials that break down technical information and make our pilot of the neighborhood data hub into a permanent and publicly accessible tool to guide outreach, assess equity impacts and support informed decision making. >> so our next step is to come back to the commission in a few months for adoption of our completed equity plan. we seek your feedback today on three key questions to finalize its completion. did the proposed equitable planning and community engagement strategies align with our equity goals? >> are there additional areas or actions we should consider given the current economic and political landscape and which critical actions should be prioritized for implementation to make the most immediate and meaningful impacts? thank you and i'll now open it

up to equity council members. >> ahead of fingers point that me here i was in the middle of my nap joking joking. good afternoon commissioners. >> director hillis community members. >> my name's mary travis allen. i'm the co-chair of the american indian cultural district here in samford cisco born and raised in san francisco and probably have lived in every neighborhood

except the affluent one. this because they didn't let us lived there. >> i want to say what housing means. >> it provides safety, health and dignity. last time i was here there was an earthquake and we were under the nami warning. >> and today we're on the heels of the fires in l.a. our earth mother doesn't play. she has warned us and many people have listened. we are human and vulnerable and in an instant all can change where we lose what we have and rely on. we become immediately aware. we are nothing without each

other and what is most important is each other. that is what equity work is about. >> yes to make right the historical wrongs that have been committed to communities that still live with disparities but to gain and support each other in these efforts we under equity councils support each other and bring forward to planning and the council education inclusion a voice and visibility of the communities that each of us represent. >> with the upcoming changes there is fear and then dissipation that resources will become scarce.

>> we are resolute to stand in unity and to continue to work and advocate that all of us you ,this city, these departments and our communities continue on our path forward to provide housing, healing and the future . the this coming monday. there is a code collision. >> we celebrate martin luther king's birthday. it's also inauguration day. many people are anxious about what that means and wheth it represents who we are. will we have jobs? will we have purpose? >> we have to stand in unity and we have to remember that commitment.

the leaders that have fought hard that worked hard in the civil rights movement to bring people together, to bring a vision together, to make dreams a reality not just something lofty and unattainable. >> the work that you do and commit to to the resolution that was passed has to continue. our community this will continue. we've learned to survive because that's what most of us have done all our lives. >> i said earlier humorously that i've lived in most of the communities in this city. >> i'm 68 years old. redlining was a reality. i remember going door to door with my mom to rent places and

doors slamming on us. >> we don't want you here in my mom little tiny person. >> she says we were here before you and she had power and strength and that blood, i'm proud to say runs through my veins. and that's why i am committed to continue this work to work with my colleagues in their work because we can't stand alone. we have to stand unified and we hold you to the test of what your words, your resolutions, the land acknowledgment really means. it's not performative. it's what we live and breathe each and every day and what we're committed to are future generations. >> so i'm going to leave you with a couple quotes. >> i love that stuff because

some people have been smarter than me to create words that are more permanent and i hope my words are permanent in your hearts. quote the ultimate measure of a man is not when he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. >> end quote. another quote injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in the single garment of destiny. whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. i thank you for your time.

>> oh, thank you sister mary for that. good afternoon. director hill is planning commission. my name is william ortiz cartagena. i'm a mission district native. my mom came here to san francisco as an undocumented immigrant and she always told me why san francisco is because it's the pure form of the american dream. all my children were born in san francisco and go to public schools in san francisco. and being a mission district native it wasn't too long ago when planning was our community's biggest adversary. and why was that? because planning was built on an artificial foundation of bias and inequity. so what we've done with our work at the equity council is build deep organic roots that surpass those outdated

foundations and planting firmly in the soil of san francisco. a planning that's built for all san franciscans. i want to commend director hillis because he walked the walk. he didn't just check off the box to to to be performative. i want to commend his staff because boy we are they're good counselors. we some tough people and we gave it to them wrong and they never back down. they worked with those hand in hand. i want to thank my colleagues at the equity council because we represent an eclectic and a variety of san franciscans and different communities. and we had really difficult conversations, truthful conversations but always respectful conversations. the goal of the equity council is to do institutional changes no matter who is here because at the end of the day all we want is to leave a better san francisco for future san franciscans because we love this city. >> thank you.

>> hi, my name is majid crawford. i'm the executive director of the new community leadership foundation and also a member of the equity council. just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. how much to talk about something that's personal cause land use is personal. everyone of course. but as as some of you may know ,urban renewal which was a very violent land use policy almost destroyed jazz in the 1960s. this was done through the wholesale bulldozing of black commercial corridors across the country. and we know that impact just from the fillmore. so i was born and raised san francisco grew up in the fillmore. my father played my and my my son my great my great uncle who i was very close to. that's how i played on fillmore street. and as you know, urban renewal

completely bulldozed and destroyed the community. fillmore should have been. area that's rival to chinatown or the mission district where people come to san francisco you got to go to was people asking where to go to go to got to go to chinatown you want them to do go to the mission that's what fillmore was supposed to be. it was supposed to be a a cultural mecca. and it was cut short and this racial equity action plan it it helps to it feels like there's a amnesia of of the impact urban renewal had on san francisco and and its implications with planning and even though redevelopment that what the work they done was quote unquote outside of planning because we had our own commission as soon as it sunsetted there should have been an immediate emergency meeting. the planning look at the damage done we had no control but now we could create solutions. and so the the racial equity action plan a gives that

opportunity. but but jazz during the 1960s and i'm and soon it was it was the music of the common people you know it was it was for fillmore it was the voice of the struggle against urban law. and so is no wonder why redevelopment didn't support jazz at the time and blues today of course at that time it stripped us of a powerful cultural economic base and of course the corporations at that time they quickly acted and took over jazz and today jazz is no longer an economic base for black people is really kind of a leisure activity for you know, the accomplished you know, the elite, you know and of course it still for for some common people there's other elements like hip hop is more

of a voice of the community now that's not marketable and and at the time looked at hip hop the same as they do jazz back then that's what they looked at it the same and so i'm hoping that there's this racial equity act as a plan to help us come up with real solutions when we're looking at development in the fillmore because there's a lot of opportunities there. they're doing the geary boulevard under a planning which is possibly building out new developments on geary street. safeway is closing. there's a muni substation building that's been vacant since 1977. the fillmore heritage center is still not activated. there's so much opportunity now and and heritage and jazz has been commercialized and commodified is the terms now is used really to kind of attract outside developers outside people to kind of pacify local community but really doesn't offer a real solution to remedy the harm that was done. and the last thing i want to say is is some of the solutions

that's that's come coming out in the fillmore has been like facade improvement or amenities which i have no problem with facade improvement right no problem with that at all but for the fillmore it's almost like a glorified station of the past but doesn't offer any real solutions about how to get the people that was harmed by these policies in those storefronts. that's kind of being redone. and so just in closing, you know, i feel that this action plan could be a tool for me and many people my community as we try to plan and develop and engage with with with the planning department s.f. mta for our development, i believe that this could be a tool and so i just thank you for the opportunity present or something like this i direct the hill is in the whole planning staff and this whole commission i just think for that that we're here and that we're talking about this and thank you very much. good afternoon commissioners

director hillis nice to see you . i'm masaki me i am like you. i'm a commission. i'm art commissioner of the city. i also am the former co-chair of the castro lgbtq castro cultural district. so i was this is part of the work that we've done through this actually is through the district. so it's very personally been involved in all of that from from the inception of it and i also serve i have the honor actually serve with this amazing group of people on this advisory council and with director hill's team and staff for the last three years i think since we we started i spent a little over three years ago you know on a personal note, i wear many hats in this town as an advocate as you

know, as a commissioner and also as a small business owner . and this last three years when i started this when i was asked to sit and serve on this committee, i wasn't sure what that means and how tangible it can be and what kind of impact you can have. it wasn't very clear because you know, equity and i you know the i work unfortunately not all of it has really produce results that it's meant to it really a lot of times i'm in a lot of rooms where it's really a check box unfortunately still and this at this advisory board for me personally it's one of probably the most i could tell i'm the most proud of this work out of all the work that i do and i've done this has been one of the most amazing experience for me personally. oh as i said because it gives

me the opportunity to see it from different hats that i wear but why is it important for me personally and what what how it has manifested and how it's changed me as a as a as i serve the city and my communities is because this amazing group of very committed people that you see that few of them are sitting behind me and just spoke ahead of me representing a very incredible diverse community in which our collaboration and each of us came from position of actually represent our own communities because very rarely our diverse communities get to actually work tangibly in a room and have the hard conversations with each other and uplift each other rather than divide because the resources have been so limited in which our committees have been fighting each other rather than actually working with each other. >> and i have had the privilege of actually sitting in a room with this amazing group of

leaders and learn how to be a san franciscan and uplift all of us. it doesn't mean that because i need my needs for my community as a bipoc lesbian you know, representation of the of the community. that doesn't mean i have to take away from the community other communities but actually we can work with each other to make sure we all get something and i think at a moment that we're sitting right now as mary mentioned i mean we all are you know, anxiety. i live anxious. many of us might be at the moment of what's going to come because the reality of the wave of change that is coming from all around our leadership, whether it's the federal in a worldwide and even in our small city of san francisco, the reality is that there's a lot of change in policy and also politics. and for most of us sitting over here today speaking in front of you, our communities are being

specifically targeted and i get emotional. i think about that because it's reality of you know, i have scholarship my my family all the time. >> you know, it might be some idea out there but it really is impacting my life as who i am earth as and the people that i have engagement with every day of my life. and so more than any time this communities need to work with each other with you as a city and with the new administration and more than any any time this equity work that we have been sort of working on for the last three years in which the plan is being presented to you as needed then at least anytime in recent time of my life in the last in this city for the last 30 something years and this country over 40 years. >> so the reality of it is we each of us have the pulse of our communities in which you you as you represent our city might not have that

individually and that's really our work as advisors to to this department and to the city is to actually bridge that gap and make sure that we share with you and continue creating that what i call the bridge of trust which historically has not really been there between our communities and the city. >> so i wanted to thank you for your support. i know few of you are new. we look forward to working with this new commission and i'm looking very much forward to continue to work with under the direction of director hillis and the staff and my incredible teammates over here. and so i wanted to i wanted to reiterate what mary just said that we can't and alone and we really have to hold each other and uplift each other to survive all of this. >> so thank you for your time and on what we call good

afternoon commissioners it's so great to see so many new faces here at the commission. it's been a while since i've been here and congratulations president so and vice president katherine moore on your election today. my name is raquel dandyism, the director of summer pilipinas which is the city and state recognized filipino cultural heritage district in the south market and i am also very honored to serve on the equity council along with really and we're not all here but it's really an incredible group of community leaders who really represent the cultural wealth of this city and the future of the city, the history and the future of the city. i first came to san francisco 30 years ago. i was an undergrad student at ucla and i came up with a student film crew to work on an independent film centered on the lives of immigrant working class filipino community in the

south market. and that's when i fell in love with the city and immediately when i graduated the year after i moved i took all my things and moved to san francisco and since then i've developed deep roots here. i've had all my kids here. they all went to bessie carmichael and the local public schools and i can tell you that in those last those 30 years i've been very active in the south market community and for most of those years our relationship with the planning department and the commission has been very adversarial and you know, for many, many years we felt that the south market has been just cut up and that planning has past projects planned over us instead of with community. and so the historic resolution that was passed in 2020 and our city development of the equity council has really shifted

things. you know of course we're just starting we're just scratching the surface. i mean we're trying to undo decades of harm that's been done. but also we have also new challenges that we're facing every day like with the housing element mandate and all the you know, everything happening in the world. but i would say that things have definitely i mean you still continue to get strongly worded emails for me but i think definitely things have been able to shift and the formation of equity council has allowed for a platform for for our communities to work proactively with planning and you know planning's a great leadership and team. i just want to highlight as an example part of the advocacy of equity council to provide community based funding and planning. we were able to work on a housing element implementation plan that is kind of marries the goals of the are so much

less so much openness chess plan and also the city's goal or mandate is pretty ambitious significant mandate of 80,000 plus and 60% has to be affordable. there's a lot of pressure and initiative to streamline and to build, build, build but we want to make sure that in this era we're not redoing kind of the mistakes of the past and that we build with community. we preserve neighborhoods and we actually work together to to achieve those goals. and so just on that end i do want to end by gifting to the president and vice president more reading we have our support which is the every cultural district has to produce a cultural history housing economic sustainability strategy report some are up this was the first to have our adopted japantown has there is completed and also trust leather cultural district and

we really encourage you all to support and also integrate all the chess reports that come out from the ten cultural districts as they become available. and so i'll leave this with gary for anyone else who would like a hard copy. >> i'm happy to also get it to you. thank you very much. that concludes our presentation. thank you so much and we look forward to your questions. that's it. we should open up public comment members of the public if you'd like to address the commission on this matter now is your opportunity to do so. you need to come forward.

>> good afternoon commissioners. my name is siobhan and i am very grateful and honored to be here. so much is coming up for me listening to all the presentations. i was born and raised in conference asco. i am a descendant of genocide survivors from enslaved africans and from my father. those are my great grandparents. my father was a sharecropper. he came to san francisco during world war two. he was a conscientious objector and he set up and built a life for himself and our family in the fillmore. and i came along in the 70s and i grew up hearing stories of the fillmore at the now we call it the harlem of the west. but i grew up seeing and hearing and knowing only it as a moonscape. and i grew up in san francisco

. i went to low high school. i went to college, put myself through city college, san francisco state. and i worked as an educator in san francisco. so i'm very familiar as well as lived in a number of neighborhoods in san francisco . so i'm very familiar with the segregated diversity in san francisco but also having friends from different backgrounds the importance of culture and family. and when i hear about cultural districts not until i'm also a survivor of addiction to decades of opioid and meth amphetamine addiction as a result from negligence and from a medical trauma when i delivered my son. >> and so when i came to the tenderloin i came as a newly recovered person and full of hope and luckily i was able to meet people wonderful people in the community.

the tenderloin allowed the community now because it's a a a very diverse community there are so many different peoples and cultures. but i didn't understand it is also a very complicated neighborhood to navigate. but i got to know people like del seymour from cold tenderloin and he took me under his wing and i learned how to do the walking tours. >> and i learned the people of the neighborhood and and the history some of the history and i was part of he eventually asked me to be a part of this of organizing the tenderloin blackness. and it was such a joy because i got to meet some of the i acknowledge the timer but some of the our leaders in the community as well as bring in the everyday people in our neighborhood. and it was an opportunity to for art for people to connect with the art to contribute asians of black americans because a lot of times we're demonized. but we're doing wonderful

things in this neighborhood and bringing communities and cultures together is so important for the morality and the survival of our people. >> thank you. >> happy new year. my name is tyree. i guess i'm here to help celebrate running into darryl seymour through the tenderloin but being able to celebrate the tenderloin. i'm humanities major with african-american studies and studied about african-american history has always been a joy to me. and so when i was asked to be a part of that then during walking tours about a year or two ago it was during black history month and as we approach black history month being able to help cebrate black history and current and past. so i happen to live in the tenderloin right now next to what i call the mount rushmore of the tenderloin and it was a painting, a mural with dale seymour on there as well as you

know, jasmine anthony and you know and the great you know, more or less pastor that has passed on, you know, basically of glide memorial church. you know i'm cecil williams so basically i'm just here to say thank you. thank you for your support. thank you for supporting us to be able to to highlight and be able to share and share with the world and the community and what a great place the tenderloin is. we are basically like dale says, we know each other, we are community and being able to uplift each other is a it's been a joy to me so thank you very much. all right. >> hello, my name is dennis and i'm just want to say thank you for having us here today. i'm here speaking on behalf of tenderloin blackness code tenderloin and dale seymour.

and yeah, as a member of the community of the tenderloin i've lived in the tenderloin for about ten years and three and a half of those years i was actually living on the streets of the tenderloin and through groups and organizations like code tenderloin i was able to get my life together. and today i have like about a year and a half of sobriety clean time so i'm pretty happy about that. >> and yeah and tenderloin blackness also represents the fact that we do get like in a bad light a little bit just like our african community black people in particular are put in a bad light of what happens in the tenderloin with like we have a lot of drug we had a lot of drug use. i don't know if we do anymore because i'm not a part of that anymore. but as far as you know just what what you guys can do and how you guys can help organizations like that we got feet on the ground that are actually out there that understand and know what it's like to be homeless, know what

it's like to be addicted and you know there is help for people for getting housing and everything. all that tenderloin is a wonderful community. ■ we have the largest concentration of children in the northern part of the northern california here and that should be recognized and as well so i think you guys okay. last call for public comment seeing none public comment is closed. >> this matter is done before you commissioners commission. i think you first of all thank you to the staff thank you to the community equity division members who really put their

time to put their comments and testify before the planning commission and also the community members. there is a lot in the three and on social equity. so we're kind of like oh who should should we should start now but but in sincerity i mean this is something that you know as we the commission back in 2020 passed the resolution racial racial social equity many community members just to give a context on the racial social equity resolution many community members felt like they're not being heard after how many years of planning and coming here to the planning commission and they and really the main goal of the racial social and i remember it was a lot of conversation and difficult conversation in drafting that resolution as well and i'm glad that the you

know karla thank you for sending so that to all of us in the commission to remind us what the resolution is all about. and when i read the resolution again, it you know ityç■ñ also always give me some emotional feeling into it because it was really quite a conversation and for me personally i couldn't believe that we passed a resolution. i could have believed that we would have this racial social equity that has been talng about by the community members for such a very long time. >> there are many things in the in the packet that the staff sent to was there are things that are the staff survey, the equity planning strategies and the community engagement strategies maybe i'll go first on the i mean you know in terms of the equitable planning strategies, i'm glad that the the department is proposing to

add those two strategies equitable planning and committee engagement and i think hearing the commission especially for me committee engagement is such a very important component of planning and if we're doing community planning it has to have committee engagement. >> my only i would say in general i you know i agree with all the strategy points of the equitable planning. i think for me after all this conversation we had in the community during the commission matters is in strategy too. i believe in 2.2. i just want also to be explicit in mentioning the bayview hunters point as a neighborhood and i you know i think this is also one of the neighborhoods that the planning really needs to allocate resources in terms of equitable planning and also committing engagement and

having a planner for this for this area. and i just want to emphasize that and i think some parts of it will probably go on in in terms of the budget and how we go in that for the next fiscal year. and also there are conversations of again of the deficit that we have in the city. i hope that we also don't get loose track when we're talking about deficit racial social equity too. and so what does that mean for the planning? there will be hire freezing hires up you know but at the same time i guess i mean i think it's still important to to prioritize the racial social equity for the neighborhoods that we find that lack of resources. >> another thing to that i would like to point out an equitable planning strategies is around strategy 4.3 which is

around the development development agreement and and provide targeted community benefits. you know for me last year has been a roller coaster in terms of like how many impact fees are being waived and impact fees i always think is you know we're putting plays in terms to mitigate the the displacement and it's one of the anti displacement strategies and in in and also it is it is one of the fees that pays for reduced infrastructure for the city and so you know i believe that the goal of strategy 4.3 as we there are this kind of like proposals perhaps in the future is to strengthen the development agreements and also i believe and also the committee benefits.

but i want to also make sure that this community benefits are actual legal binding and not something that is you know, because there are projects here that would come in. >> of course it's not part of the decision making of the committee of the planning commission but it's one of the factors when project sponsor mentioned about community benefits and then later on the year we hear that it's not because the projects not moving forward it's not being materialized and then that's separate from development agreements. so i want to make sure when we are presenting development agreements i think development agreements are more represented by the city but the commuter benefits are not represented by the city. there is actually legal binding and that we don't put the community members on their own chasing for that benefit. so that's one thing that i want to also kind of highlight when we're talking about equitable

planning and i really hope that the impact fees, the different kinds of impact fees doesn't get waived as we are going through this economic crisis. but how do we also, you know, think of incentives for developments at the same time not really rolling back on the decisions are gave you know, systems that we have that we've designed for anti displacement . >> um also one thing that actually one of my question is and you know when i look into this staff survey and perhaps more like a question you know i notice that on page nine that one of the department i believe it's the current department where you know how does a question how racial whether you are whether the staff are aware

of the racial social equity toolkit and i think you know that's for us kind of like how the racial social equity toolkit is actually being implemented within the department. i mean you know that is more into leadership question in terms of the intention of the racial social equity and how do we measure you know, that the implementation of the racial social equity and also for for me just to clarify the equitable planning strategies, when does this really apply? does this apply in broad general plans or does this apply whether in big projects large projects are mid to small projects? i think there needs to be some clarification when does equitable planning really apply ? i'd like to think that it all applies to all of kinds of planning that we do but i of you know i see during the commission and sometimes i think of it like wait i thought we had racial social equity toolkit what you know i don't see it you know when it comes

down so those sort of things that really i want to see in terms of equitable planning, in terms of development, every development whether big, small, medium and also the kind of general plans that we're talking about how does that apply and how is it being implemented in terms of community engagement? i totally agree with all of the strategies and i do want to highlight in terms of the collaboration and expand between city agencies as well and also i also want to extend that to the board of supervisors or offices so and so we had that kind of conversation as well. >> i think the board of supervisors offices have also that special relation and they also need to know what the planning is also doing. so i think having that constant communication with their offices in terms of committing engagement if there's a plans that are coming in and i know

that most of it i know that the plan reach out to the to those offices but i just want it to be explicit in our strategies as well. >> and so one thing that also a big you know as always reading these the equitable planning and again the community equity division you know i mean let's not i mean you know there is the current mayor or the new mayor always emphasize on the downturn recovery and also what does it mean for racial social equity in downtown recovery i think is something that you know that as a planning department need to mention that to the mayor as well. >> and i know that the community equity division since like drafted their goals as well for the downtown recovery that they would like to see.

so as we think about you know, incentives for more developments, i don't want us to lose track still into social equity. i would like to see down to recovery as an equity strategy not just on market strategy, not just an economic strategy but as an equity strategy. so i'd like that to be emphasized in as part of a downtown recovery. um and then another thing to that i know i'm going to go on and is also the issues of homelessness and i think i from the previous hearings i that's something that i'd like to have you know a follow up hearing on is around the homelessness and how is the the planning department together with other city agency is working on community engagement and also at the same time the plans for you know whether providing permanent solutions and any mitigation measures for the

homelessness. >> so those are my comments and also oh one before i think one last thing is again the strategies on revenues for affordable housing is something that also as we're thinking about funding for affordable housing i think in the economy price in economy we're in right now we also need to think about the strategies and revenues and exploring on that. so thank you. yeah, thank you commissioner brown i suspect we're all going to have a lot of comments but we're asked a lot of questions today and it's very important work too, you know, so i want to open just by thanking the equity advisory council members for all your work. i know it's been a big time commitment but it's probably some of the most important and

impactful work that the planning department is doing not to diminish any any other work the department is doing but you know, this is the through line to really fulfilling our our equity racial and social equity obligations and commitment. so thank you for all your your time and participation and thank you to staff as well. um you know this work is i think it's so great to see us as a department as the city continue to be a leader in racial social equity efforts especially given the changes in the national political climate that have been discussed. >> so i'm really happy to see these next steps being taken. um, and you know the first time i encountered the the department's equity plan while on the commission i said wait, where is the the external facing part of this and i understand we had to focus on the internal part first but it really felt like a gap and i'm glad to see that we've gotten to this point of the more external facing components. i just want to open by talking a little bit about the survey the staff survey is going to

start there and so you know it was really helpful to see that there's a shared belief internally in the department among staff that there's progress being made in terms of racial and social equity. but i'm still seeing the divides there in terms of um, you know, tools and training and awareness and i think the commissioner imperial brought this up as well. um and so my hope is that through implementation of especially the new chapter ten um there's going to be an even bigger increase in this awareness and we're going to be picking up on some efforts that also were started and now you know we can continue a little bit more robustly. um, so then getting into the the new goals chapters 1011 um, you know i really approach this took to heart the questions are prioritization that was posed to me and uh you know on the whole i'm happy with the prioritization of the strategies and actions that are in there. um i see there's a lot of items that are this acknowledges other work that is already happening across the department

as well and it's good to see in two ways. one is that that work or that work plan already reflects a lot of our equity efforts so we've already interweaving it into the department's work plan and i really appreciate seeing that. um, and then at the same time it also made me think about what are the things that that we could end up dropping because they're not interwoven into some of the other efforts that are going on in the department. >> so that's kind of where i started from um so my framework for thinking about how to prioritize these efforts is first of all around those strategies and actions that really build on capacity internal capacity of staff and then also capacity of engagement with our external partners because to me we are possibly going to be resource constrained in the near future as a department and so if we have these collaboration's implementation efforts we build these relationships, we work to identify funding um and that helps to build our ability to maintain momentum like the

implementation of the tenderloin community action plan um and like these ongoing efforts with the equity advisory council that's one general priority area for me. >> the other set of strategies and actions that i really like to see priorities of the are those that provide a framework and process improvement for staff to follow internally. um so these are those things that help us with ongoing implementation so everyone kind of has the tools available to them and so for me this was these were aspects like the community benefits framework which was action 1.1 and the equitable planning strategies uh the equity audit program, the impact analysis guidelines and implementation of the racial and social equity tool for long range and fundamental department planning policies. so and then another priority area for me is the tools for tracking understanding and

communicating on the part of staff and the community. so that's things like the equity dashboard and the interactive tools to support staff's outreach uh and then also the indicators in the detailed actions for tracking implementation and successes. you know, we don't know if we're succeeding or not tracking some of these outcomes. >> um, and then like i said earlier i, i do just as a general comment, you know the initiatives around racial social equity that may not could fall through the cracks of other efforts by the departments other divisions of the department those are the ones that we really need to take a close look at and make sure we have identifying resources and for implementation. >> um, and then there's the time sensitive ones as well. >> you know if we have programs are moving forward this year that we really need to concentrate our racial social equity efforts on then those are you know there's an accelerated timeline for some

things happening in the department and i want to make sure that we are actually addressing those. >> those are big picture and it was a lot and and maybe even over the week and i'll write up some my comments a little bit more detail on them but i do want to now touch on just quickly a few more specific items. um, so for the indicators in the implementation actions uh a few thoughts. >> one is it's always so hard to differentiate what is tracking of implementation versus what is an indicator of success related to what the department can directly control versus what is more just sort of a tracking of how conditions are changing. >> and so i in my own job i encounter that problem all the time with information implementation tracking. so um, you know, i just want to make sure we're kind of being realistic about what is inside and outside of the city's control acknowledging that while also tracking real world outcomes regardless of whether

they you know, we have the ability to control every aspect of them. um my other concern about indicators is just my thought is let's just make sure they are the tracking is implementable. there were a handful in there where i thought maybe the tools already exist. another standing it and it's very easy to track this but on the face of some of them uh it sounded like put together a lot of information and so i just want to make sure that it's not going to take, you know, a month to pull together a single indicator um and then uh, two more points one on the community engagement strategies um, well i just i wanted to say i'm very happy to see the emphasis on the creation of best practices providing ongoing resources for department staff who were involved in the communication. um, but i there's one thing i didn't see in the community engagement um, strategies and actions and so there's a lot about the process of the community engagement and i

understand why that's super important but what i did not see was much in terms of what to do with that information after we get it or how to integrate that into um, you know where are the best practices for summarizing, considering and integrating the community's guidance into the outcomes of our you know, work products of of our planning efforts. and so if we want the committee to be active decision makers i think it's an area where we need to provide some guidance on that even if at this stage it's just this is something we need to work on, i would i would hope to see that acknowledged in the engagement section. um, so those are my thoughts and think thank you again everyone for all the great effort on this. i appreciate that. um i, i want to thank everybody who was out naming anybody first as i think is integratedg heavy lifting by everybody and i have to acknowledge that nobody could have done without

each other's help or challenges your own testimony what the department presented and what you all lived in as your own work and what you brought to the project is amazing and we would not have in front of us huh? if this would have done without you actively shaping and participating in the process. so thank you to all i do not want to repeat but rather support the summaries provided by commission. imperial was deeply experienced in the subject matter including uh commissioner brown who works on some of the issues that influence of what comes together here. what i wanted to kind of make some overarching questions or comments as i see them from the perspective of overall comprehensive planning and how we move into the future. >> i am in full support and i'm glad that we are chapter 11 and ten equitable planning and community engagement we are moving from the theory into the

practice and i do want to reflect on the time when this commission supported the formulation of our equity position way back in 2020. what happened actually at the time is we had three years of covid which actually said the tenderloin and back more than anything i have observed in the many many years that i literally once a week walked through it from the top of an uphill all the way down to city hall and it turned from something that was surviving that was diverse and interesting and safe into something that was i could only unfortunately use the word scary. uh, it was like a bomb had dropped into what was the surviving community which helped each other which was vibrant in the many aspects of diversity completely destroyed

little saigon etc. and that made it even harder to start was what we are talking about today. we lost sense years essential investment and essential connective tissue in the larger community city wide community. so today i feel that we are starting with something completely new and i am moved by the enthusiasm that i heard from the testimony from people who are actively participants in this community that is i'm not properly pronouncing names here i wrote down cheyenne, i wrote down a tyree and i wrote down dennis the loser actually ultimately the people that we need to hear from each time a project comes forward because it's and they are helping us understands a deeper roots of

what it means to practice equitable planning from the ground up. i want to just go quickly into reflecting on some of the strategies one through five the common was equitable planning equitable housing implementation and i'm not saying anything new is a challenge this commission faces almost every thursday and each first thursday we are asking what the equitable component of housing and there are many disappointment is at the end of each thursday because there seem to be major obstacles to delivering those at a rate that we had hoped when we supported the approval of the housing element and when we ultimately are moving into the implementation of up zoning communities after determination that is at the core of good planning. however that is also the

challenge that certain project approvals fall under slightly different rules than we were all used to over the many years a community representation and culture preservation hopes that we will have not just community representation and cultural cultural preservation that but we have community representation in all in every aspect of planning and cultural preservation. it is easier because we have a clearly defined cultural district. districts do society at large has many, many neighborhoods and some value. however they have not had to fortune yet to be planned as cultural districts equity and policies and regulation something i think we all need to have additional use and census open to fully understand that what that means in the challenges and in the newness

with which we are using or learning how to use to use a completely different mindset to be wide open and more aware of what that really means in application and i think this commission is very, very well prepared and candid with each other as you perhaps who do speak earlier to take on the challenges of self critique including hearing you asking us to not overlook x, y or z and we need you to stay in the dialog with us to properly attend to our task. environmental justice and climate resilience in itself the amount of challenge that come with climate change are so huge that i think we are all pretty much on the same page that we only if we do it together can be find environmental justice and climate resilience. there is none of us who is exempt. it doesn't matter if you live

in the tenderloin, if you live in the bayview, if you work in the financial district i think we are all on the same bt and if that boat sings we'll all be going to sinking together. so i think we just need to challenge each other. we need to stand with each other in order to do that properly. >> let me move to one point before i get too lengthy here which i might have a tendency to do. i wanted to get a better understanding. i met a rabbit you see on my handout that give me one second patience here resources allocations i would like to ask the department what that really means. budget equity tools when it comes to budget equity and we will probably be discussing that in a week or two when we talk about the financial planning of the department moving in the future call to budget discussion how can we with shrinking resources

maintain not only the reduced demand of people in our equity division but how can we also indeed provide probable additional funding in order to kick in the learning parts the community engagement part in the manner that we are really broadening our focus every time we said yeah, i'm not looking for an answer but i'd like to challenge on on that and it's a difficult one for the department as many many things to balance but i think i will be very tuned into watching that particular aspect very closely. the i'm i'm going to be throwing a question out to the department as we're moving into up zoning. how can we practice in our discussions? that's the discussions we have around that indeed are equitable indeed give effect of

communities the same say as everybody else. i would like to kind of end was supporting what commissioner imperial said. i believe that's a downtown recovery does include the tenderloin i believe that a downtown recovery includes some sort of market. i believe that's a that's a downtown recovery includes chinatown because downtown and for anybody who lives here or for anybody who comes to visit here is not just the financial district although that is the one which has a large amount of empty buildings but everybody who lives adjacent to it including the communities i just i'm just mentioning are equally affected by it. and for that reason i would like to ask that department as they are going to be probably at the front end of leading the effort to consider that will

broadening our strategy in an equitable and appropriately challenged way by approving today or supporting today to include all of the community use that said adjacent or part of downtown and that's all thank you. thank you very much, commissioner williams. i want to thank all my commissioners for their input especially commissioner imperial for her pointing out the very important things that she she pointed out this is this work for race, racial equity and in planning is something that is important but more more important it's something that a lot of people don't don't understand and don't value the the the

outcomes of of not having something in place. so what is it when it what it does to communities you know having grown up here i've seen it firsthand like a lot of us have the gentrification asian and the you know the impacts of not having these types of plans in place to protect residents and to and to listen to people to listen to our communities. this does covers it's very, very thorough. >> it covers everything i think is important. >> and so i'm you know, fully in agreement with pretty much everything that i see here and you know, strategies 11 and and ten um, i'm i'm on board with i

want to thank you know, everyone that's had a hand in this even going back you know towards tonight to 2016 and 2020 and all the the commissions prior to this one that have had a hand in pushing this forward it's very important work and you know it's funny for me personally being i was on that side of the aisle, you know, more than i care to to to remember and now i'm here and and so i just really appreciate everyone's effort this is a continuation of efforts that go back decades uh, and it's really important to highlight that that everything is connected and for me that's what i see when i look at this going back to the

civil rights movement and going back to a lot of the um the struggles that you know people of color and disenfranchized communities wherever they be and whoever they are have had to fight to have a voice. so i don't want to get too too caught up in everything but it's very heartfelt. everyone's that came up here and and shared their um their experience. um, thank you all. i think your voices are very important. we need to uplift your voices. more and more of the community in this city um, and not let um commerce and other stuff stifle

um, what we need to do as far as equity and racial equity. >> um, i do have a couple of questions that that i have and you know one of the things that that came up for me while i was reading through this was how the planning department how they are you know, accepting thla and how the the racial equity department how how planning is is you know, how how how is it affected the department and how how are you being received and and i guess i can direct that to miriam cheong, the director of a community equity.

>> good afternoon commissioners miriam chen planning department i think this is a question that also director hillis and my peers can answer as carla described it was originally an effort to work internally. there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of unknown sometimes the language changes and it started as a court started with actually gloria flores right here who carry a lot of the work at the beginning. >> i feel like we have arrived to a platform where there is participation across divisions . there's still confusion. there is still some some concerns about if i'm applying rules and the rules are just apply equally at each project how do i consider equity in this? >> maybe the conversation that you had earlier give us some light on to how we can address some of the delicate issues in

each community according to the needs of each community. but i think as you can see in the surveys we have expanded the understanding of racial and social equity within planning. >> not everyone but to some extent we are owning this as task. we take care of the land. we're responsible for regulating, guiding the use of land and therefore we have an impact on everything all community. >> but i will invite rachel or rich to it to see if they want to add something about how the plan relates to their own or lisa to their own division. hello. >> hello. good afternoon commissioners. good to be with you all today and we have all of our directors here today because i think we want to emphasize that this is really important and very serious work for every division and one of the ways that we structured the the plan before you is to really integrate across the strategies the work that we're doing and i think also to integrate our work within the division and

within the community. so the equity council isn't just working with any equity vision but again advising the whole department advising our work. we take for example our rezoning work to the equity council. we'll take it again as the project continues so we can get that feedback as we're going and even get ideas of where we can do more outreach and things like that. so we continue to integrate this work into all of our work . you'll see for example with the rezoning and as we come forward with with the informational hearings we're asking the critical questions whose benefits from policy proposal, who's burdened by them and how do we as we're thinking about proposals that you all will look at and recommend to the board, how can we mitigate any of the unintended consequences and bring those unintended consequences to the surface and hopefully gear them so that they're actually advancing racial and social equity instead of working in the other direction? so we're actually doing a project within our team to make sure that even our project planning document so let's say we're starting a new project, we got a grant, we're going to set up the project how are we using the racial and social equity lens to think about the

milestones that outreach plan think about all of the components of the project from the beginning as well as as the project is actually underway and making sure we're having those questions. so even just yesterday or on monday we had a meeting about tenant protections. as you know we're preparing to bring that for a hearing here related to the rezoning but really thinking about tenant protections broadly and myself dr. hills was there director wadi were all there and we're asking ourselves how do we make sure we're not just helping like general tenants but■: thinking about who are most vulnerable tenants right and how do the practices of our department help or harm the way that they can be informed of the way that we can take advantage of any current or future policies. so it really is an active part of our discussion and our day to day work as well as our project planning. but happy to answer any more specific questions if you have them. >> thank you. all right. in just add a little bit to it. i mean, you know, we talked a lot about this so you have to like listening to the community and making sure they're involved in the process. i mean the more we kind of blur

that line between like what we do as planners and what the community wants to see, i think the more successful this is all right, we can't just have the council advising us the council has to be involved in they are in the actual work we're doing and i think you've seen this in in instances like in the mission plan in the tenderloin japantown which is happening now. you know it's not just listening to the community, it's actually the communities leading these planning efforts and we're acting as implementers of what the what the community is leading. >> that's not everywhere we have that you know what you've seen and it's partly it's resources and resources to the community to that to be able to empower them to do that work with us. you know, we're not there with every neighborhood. i think we've made great strides like with the cultural districts which come with resources and again some of our planning efforts. but like you see in the bayview i think there's work still we

need to do to get to that level. we may be out in other in other neighborhoods and with other communities so it' tough during during kind of a period where resources are being reduced. so we've got to figure out a way to do that you know, without necessarily adding positions but with allocating resources within the department. >> but i want to just thank the equity council and the work they're doing because that's where they're pushing us to to get to right. not just kind of advising but also being part of the work we're doing and like you jake oscar who was a member of the give me equity advisory council and i was a member of the staff like we've got to continue to kind of blur that line between planning department and community. it's how we hire it's internship programs. it's it's reaching out to the public schools and in you know, promoting positions as planners

and work with the planning department yeah i really appreciate that it's a it's a sea change from what planning in past you know years has been and there has been you know there's a lot of fences to mend. >> you know there's a lot of you know, past experiences to to to learn from and so on and i think this represents all of that and i'm really happy to see like folks like rachel and and you director hillis really listening and paying attention and and understanding and so it means it means a lot to the community that we need to continue that work and you know you know i've understood i understand a lot of the staff or a few staff members from the equity division have left and i was just a little concerned

about that. like is there any reason that that they're leaving and you know, how is the department as a whole how are they looking at the equity division? >> i mean are they embracing the equity division? >> is there some pushback because you know, things like that happen, right? things like that happen in big organizations not the jerseys super big but still there's a lot of people that have been here a long time and so i was just wondering that i mean i'd say the work in general you know, it's it's somewhat changing the way i think historically i think i think our department and the san francisco planning department has been you know, generally, you know, who wants to work with communities in in build this trust in relationships so i think that goes across across the board. i mean certainly you know different divisions do different work like if you're

you know your job is to review plans for individual projects it may be more difficult to make that connection to to the broader equity work then if you're in citywide and doing kind of some of the broader planning whether it's around the housing element or whatnot. but you see those lines again across divisions. i think there's still work to do being blurred whether it's like the the contact statements we're doing in historic preservation and the focus on on community driven contact statements like the african american contact statement or the work we're doing with with the mission action plan, you know in in seeing the kind of collaboration across divisions would definitely making huge progress can i say everybody in the department kind of is on board and understands the work not necessarily but i think that's in any large organization and i think the challenge about folks leaving in vacant you know, in a time

of dwindling resources and the problem we have with people leaving and i think people you know, leave and vacancies come as how you backfill those positions when you know we've got hiring freezes and continue to do that work and that's something we're kind of grappling with internally and you know, the only reason i bring that up and it seems like marion has some to say but i you know, i think this is a time for this this department to expand. right. not contract. i mean there's some there's some headwind, you know, and there's some good gains and i mean me me as as a commissioner and and someone that you know cares about this issue, you know, that's what i would hope to see and along with the investments and everything else that that helps these communities medium chin planning department commissioners thank you for that question. just to add to what director hillis has presented, we're building bridges across

divisions. >> the work that the community equity division sometimes is challenging because we're doing what the community asked us to do. >> if del zimmer from tenderloin says we have a night navigator programs we need forms to track what's happening at night we go and do that with them. if the american indian community tells us we have american indian people, you're not counting them. we need to go beyond the census information to gather that information. >> if the mission folks says we have vacancies, how can we resolve that or the city vendor program we cannot have our community businesses so it goes beyond what a traditional project review traditionally is in a planning department but those are the bridges that then inform the projects and then we can work with our our colleagues that are reviewing

the projects and provide that context and provide that information so we have a more informed decision making for the decisions that you need to make on land use changes. >> thank you. i appreciate that. let's see one of the things that that i find interesting and and i just recently found out about this is is that you know out there in in in the universities throughout the country there's not much talk of racial and social equity in in in land use and urban planning is that correct am i correct yeah. >> that that that that's very interesting to me and it's it's almost like we have to educate everybody even people that have been doing this type of work for a long time. you know, they just they're

just not not that they don't agree with it but they're just not educated on it and that's why i think it's so important that we build up this department and we continue to educate not only people in planning the planners here that are on staff but the entire city, you know, in different departments so that they you know, understand what this this type of work is all about. and so i had some other things to talk about but i think all my questions were answered. >> the you know, i there's one graph that that kind of caught my eye that was in the packet and that's the actual racial makeup of the planning department which is there is a very clear disparity of people of color inside inside the planning department itself and

and i don't you know, i just want to highlight that that you know how much work that we have to do you know how much work that we have to do and and i you know, my hope is is that we could change some some hearts and minds around social equity racial equity and and and so yeah, but it is very apparent you know, looking at the graphs that wow you know there's there's a there's there's just it there's disparity and then also there's a couple of groups that weren't even we don't even have any employees like the native american category and

then also the i didn't see any pacific islander folks that are part of the planning department staff and so i wanted to just you know, just bring that up because i think at least not not that i saw in the graph i could be mistaken but but you know, i think you know, it's important, right? it's important to have to be inclusive. it's important that the department that plans for san francisco represents our francisco and try to bring, you know, as many voices and different experiences into the into the fall. so i do appreciate all the work that has been done, you know, going this far. i think we have a lot of work to do still and you know, one of the and i want to thank the equity council for your guys's work. one question i had about the equity council excuse me is do

you guys plan on expanding the equity council? is there you know what what what is your you know, vision for for the equity council? >> there's going to be a question for that for the equity council. >> this is a group that have been meeting from the very beginning and assessing what's the level of representation and that is solid ah for san francisco they have a lot of disagreements internally but as you heard from them directly is not just about a light touch on some of the issues they open to disagreements they take discuss that internally and they assess if somebody is missing at the table. so at this point this this is a very tight solid group that has done a lot of work to also challenge us and to tell us the way things are which sometimes we don't get it directly but

i'll let them speak. when we were appointed as equity council we together made a demand of the department that leave us alone for a year. we want to learn and meet and understand each other before we start making decisions and projects and they did thanks to directly others he allowed us to spend a year meeting once a month just getting to know each other so we can understand where you're coming from, where you coming from, where i'm coming from and that made it so easy for us in the subsequent years to get things done without jealousy animosity because we were all like a little family from all over the city so that that and we don't want this project to sunset at all because that's was one of the things i've been essential to 38 years. one of my criticism of san francisco is we put a lot of effort into a project and abandoned it and so that didn't work well when he tried six

months. >> we need time to see the effects it i go see it overnight. you're going to see nothing overnight. give us a chance to see these things implement and learn from our mistakes. >> so thank you thank thank you for that. i'm i'm just going to say that i appreciate all the work you do and i'm glad that you guys had that year to get to know each other. you know, put you put the same people in a room you know, for long enough time and they'll work out their differences. >> you know. and so i'm sure that's what happened. so i appreciate that. i just want i just want to say that, you know, sometimes to have a fresh, you know, opinion or whatever is is is complementary to what you guys already have. and you know, one of the things that came to mind when i when i was looking at this and is like the youth voice right? and i'm sure that you guys implement a youth vision of

what a community could be but i think that's also you know, my want to you know kick kicked out around this and it's like because those are our future san franciscans and they also deserve to express their vision of what they want san francisco to look like for them right. and so anyway i'll i'll stop with that. i appreciate all the work you guys have done and i'm very supportive of of all of your efforts and thank you. >> thank you, commissioner campbell okay. i'm glad the city attorney left. >> i know he's here because i made a mistake. >> i was supposed to make a disclosure at the beginning of this so but i'll make it now. so better late than never. but i do work against la and in 2021 we were contracted actually by the planning department to to do some work that may or may not have tied into to the action plan it was

to do public outreach, engagement and facilitation mostly around the department's regulatory review processes as it was going to be a multi-year contract. it ended early. i was not personally involved with it. i wasn't even exposed to it so i don't feel it in any way gets in my way of weighing in on this so and apologies for not doing that at the top of of the item so i'll cut to the to the things that really jumped out to me about this but i do want to just echo thanks to everyone this is obviously a huge, huge undertaking that predates me and you know we're just getting these two items here but i just want to thank the equity council for all of your hard work in the planning staff and everyone that showed up from the community. i always say this is like not the easiest meeting to get to. so thank you for for weighing in. >> i think a lot of my comments and what catches my attention

is tied to, you know, the end product because this always leads to an end product and as an architect i'm on the implementation side of that. so there are a few things here and i know the the homework assignment is you know what what should we prioritize or what do we want to kind of consider or reconsider given the economic conditions that we're in? >> so for me what really jumped out to me as something that i think is really powerful that we want to prioritize is around the education aspect of it which commissioner williams mentioned in his comments. i think planning is shrouded in mystery and confusion and i think the more knowledge we can give to people both on the on the planning staff side as well as the people i think one of the public comments was i don't even understand what you guys do and you know who you guys are and i think the people that do are the folks that have the luxury of hiring an architect or a land use attorney or an

expediter. >> so what i really liked in this plan was, you know, strategy three specifically which is creating more accessible process and information. so i heard mention of mobile permit info counter pop up planning clinics, improved understanding of the planning process and updates to the website that make it more user friendly. i love that and i think that that's something we should prioritize. some of the things that are giving me pause are some of the very specific initiatives mentioned in the equitable planning strategies. >> so specifically strategy 5.2 and this is centered around promoting environmental justice mentions that we will incorporate the lived experiences of communities affected by environmental injustice and institutional racism into environmental impact reports for development projects. >> i'd just like to understand that better because ers are are a very arduous long expensive

process for development projects so i just would love to understand what is what does that look like? how far back in time are we going and do we understand the impacts of of the existing process as it is as it is today ? >> i can go through i have one other one that really jumped out to me. all right. we can pause there and talk about that one and then i can get to the second one. >> lisa gibson environmental excuse me environmental review officer yes. actually i had flagged that as something that we were going to refine further because under the california environmental quality act we are constrained on the analysis obviously needs to meet legal standards and then in addition in the city here we are facing the review by the housing and community

development department which is asking us to ensure that our work is being done in a manner that is not overly constraining housing development and being done in an efficient manner in terms of our environmental review. so we're trying to strike a balance where we're we're advancing our equity goals in a manner that is thinking outside of the box and in our review of projects under ceqa we're looking to see how we might be able to do things differently on the one hand on the other hand you know to not do things in a way that jeopardizes our ability to meet the goals of streamlining our environmental review. >> so with this one i think that the this is reflecting an approach that we took recently on gateway where we have heard from the community that there's a lived experience in the in the bayview that that was

important to recognize even if under the environmental review process we're mitigating impacts that are resulting from a project as compared to existing conditions and not from the past that is really something that's more of an environmental justice issue and it was really very important to the community that we that we that we reflect that experience in the document and so this was this was again reflecting that and yet it was kind of a piloted effort that we took in this in this project. so it's it's definitely something that we're we're fine tuning and so this feedback from you and and from the any other commissioners we welcome and we think that there are other there are some other items in here that are talking

about our equity impact analysis approach where we might actually fold this into a more generalized equity impact analysis that would be for projects that are development agreement projects where it would be based on the type of project and not based on the level of environmental review. and so to answer your question will will fine tune this and and ensure that we're our our metrics are rather that the types of terms we use are a little bit more precise because i do think that there's when you when you speak of things in a context of environmental review we have very strict standards that we need to me to ensure legal adequacy and ensure that we're not at odds with other important objectives that we have that are really

serving the same communities that we are seeking to address in our through our equity plan. that's a long answer, right? do you have any that's helpful? any follow up questions to what i've just said? >> not at this time. that's okay. thank you. thank you. >> the other thing that jumped out to me that i'd love to understand more about is around the strategy three which is advancing equitable cultural preservation and community representation and specifically strategy 3.4 calls out developing and implementing cultural district objective design standards to preserve and enhance the unique features and identity of cultural districts while complying with state housing laws. so i'd just love to understand i know we haveave new design sts were rolling out and i'm just curious how we do this objectively and can we just talk a little bit more about maybe there some examples of

what that might be and what that might look like? >> sure. high commissioners richard gray, deputy director of current planning i'm happy to address that. so i think if you think of our current objective design standards as a kind of larger framework for the city, we are intending on doing more specific standards that are targeted towards each kind of district and neighborhood. so for example on for the historic preservation to address historic preservation concerns and our historic properties we have preservation design standards and that's going to be before you in a couple of weeks. it's targeted towards work that's occurring on category a properties or historic resources. we also know that we have to do work with our cultural districts. our cultural districts have been essential in helping to represent our community's voices and giving them an opportunity to kind of shape what their neighborhoods look like in their districts look like become important. so as we kind of evolve the

design standards further, we know that we have to go out into the communities and work with them to kind of educate them as well on the standard that we now have to take and the charge that the state has given us in terms of what design standards and what projects need to look like in their specific neighborhoods. so if you look at it, it's it's a kind of compendium of standards that's kind of what we're looking at with the culture of districts and work at all as in a kind of appendix onto the larger one that we have that makes sense. >> yeah, i guess i'm trying to understand what like what would be an example of so a good one subject design a good a good one to think about is right now for example we have design guidelines for kind of anti quatro right? >> so we did a lot of work with the community on those design guidelines. our charge would be to take those guidelines and turn them into standards so and standards

a good measure for them is it is something that is universal fully accepted and that is objective in its nature. so there's no discretion that's offered by the staff. it basically has to be a yes or no answer towards a design feature or a design kind of mandate that's given on to a specific project. so and maybe to get even like a super specific that i think you're thinking of is like an example could be that we've drawn from kind of into a quadro is if you have a blind facade you must either you know paint a mural, have an architectural treatment that is you know we would have to define what that is the standards or do something else so that you know, providing additional space for murals was a was a principle in the guidelines so it's it's thinking about things like that of like what is a part of the built environment that is uniquely important to this community and then making sure that that's carried through i know in discussions with some of filipinas there have been a lot of issues around certain

color palettes for example that are really important or certain elements that are represented and so it might be thinking about you know is that in public spaces so for public projects is there something unique that should be carried through on those projects or you know, working with rec park on rec park projects but for private development projects it might be something about you know, defining certain treatment types or you know, storefronts you know, tile work on you know, the base of storefronts or you know, things like that that we could work with the community on. you know, these are common architectural features found in our community that really represent the look and feel of what feel like our community rather than feeling like a different you know, community is sort of moving in or the built environment is changing in such a way that it doesn't really feel like our home anymore. and so how do we integrate those architectural features in a way that still allows for that growth but really kind of gives the vibe of the way it has been for lack of a better term. so it's hard. i think guidelines was a lot

easier and so i think this is our charge of trying to figure out how we can standardize those things as we move forward. so it is definitely an ambitious goal but it does very much piggyback i think on the other important work that the historic preservation team is doing and this is the other sort of relationship with a recent social equity work with current planning is in our landmarks program and designating properties and really taking the lens of you know we have the choice of what landmark designation somebody is working on and so we are really focusing that the you know, landmarks that people in our they work on should be really thinking about either incredibly at risk properties you know for a variety of different reasons or ones that are you know based in cultural you know the cultural districts have identified as being really important to their communities so that we don't have to worry about those being impacted. so i think those are a couple of the strategies the both tie in to current planning but also what what could standards look like and those would come before us once they're gratified. >> yeah yeah all of our design

standards will require certification by the planning commission. >> it's it's the examples you gave quickly slip into subjective to me so i'll just be interested to see how they come together so okay. >> thank you mr. shoukry and then i guess just one general overarching concern i have is just around resources which has already been brought up knowing that we've got limited resources and there's there's a lot of ambition here and i, i am curious about what what's truly realistic. there was a mention in the report of $750,000 i assume that's an annual allocation and i think it was 25% of staff resources anyway i'm just some general concern around that and i guess that's something that we can address when the budget comes around. but those are all my comments. very thoughtful comments. thank you, commissioner campbell and commissioner mcgarry, i'd like to thank everybodye

advisory council members, the community staff planning the city as a whole. >> i'm sorry i like to thank everybody equity advisory sorry advisory council members to great job the fact that you're all working together and you're all on the same page with planning and the city this is the community at work. it's very impressive to see and thank you for that. and there are hurdles scale local, state and federal they're all going to have dollar signs on them going forward. what can be realistic and what isn't with the fact that everybody is working together is phenomenal. i would really like to thank maryam and carla for schooling me to be in. gave me a presentation on this . i'd also like to thank my fellow commissioners because their insights and asking questions basically have broadened my knowledge a little bit more the more you know the

less the more you learn the less you know but you walk away really realization of how much more has to be done or in this case how cohesive i'm adding ten and 11 will make the overall goal. so i stand in support of that and i look forward to working with you and commissioners to improve it even further going forward. thank you. well thank you very much. i would like to just summarize one sincere deep gratitude to the entire division under miriam's leadership and the community equity working group working tirelessly. >> i'm pretty sure there's a lot of harm and hurtful histories that you all share through all these years heartfelt to you and also thank you for all of my department staff the diligently working together it's not easy every

single step of that strategy you got the whole grit there that each one of them deserved a round of applause for all of you. i do want to mention one thing i echo a lot of my fellow commissioners comments and i'm not going to be drooling on to it in further detail but i do want to emphasize that commissioner campbell had a really good point about our financial situation with the resources are getting more limited so we do have to be extreme. lee fiscally responsible with our internal way of doing things we need to be more nimble, more agile and i think that is time to look into it. our organization internally if we can utilize cross division and cross platform staff to make sure that our strategies do employ deploy efficiently

with the least amount of resources and effort. so i look forward to seeing that with in line with our financial strategies in the upcoming future. i would also like to address commissioner gilbert's mentioning about we do need to include our youth. they are our future all these things that we work towards hard enough to do that i believe this lady who had spoken earlier and i have for your name on my note then try to put it up we the lady that's sitting next to marry you. thank you for thank you for your comment because like you said, what is in your mother it lives in your vein and so what is in all of us here today live in the vein of our children. so i like to applaud and make

sure that this any implementation we do really is we're only setting the foundation for our future generations. some of you some of our staff and i don't know who that is did i am fully aware of that did a presentation in front of the youth commission earlier this year specifically about the yosemite yosemite alert reputation plan that is strategically addressing the strategy. number five environmental justice and climate resilience. i don't know who you are but it's from our planning department and whoever that team is that actually answered the youth commissioner's request and went over and talk about it and let all 11 or 16 of them i forgot i forgot how many of them answer all this question is is is is a plausible thank you. >> you got my heart there. thank you for doing that. >> i do aware of one of the

things that i forgot which commissioner mentioned but it's about our racial composition of our departments and seeing this chart from our 2017 of different different divisions what are the racial component of our staff? it is very illuminating. it's in the appendix in the report figure three for racial and ethnic breakdown of divisions and dated 2017 i would like to see where is it looking like now or the most recent one that will be helpful for guiding us to continue our work because i do have to say that like i can say because i am asian we always just got higher just to make our boss look good. we end up working in the janitor closet so i hope i

really believe this is not happening in us but i just would like to see where we were back then and now where we are now with a robust strategic plan implemented on step one two number step nine so that was great. my other the only thing i wanted to say is that i keep seeing really beautiful pictures of chinatown but they're actually rarely included in the represents ation of this. so i'm just i'm just curious of i'm not really curious i actually wanted to say i am really not like i'm not green at this space in terms of cultural engagement and appropriateness to outreach. just because one person say no doesn't mean represent the

entire community. so i would like to challenge ourselves to make sure that we reach out maybe using different methods and strategies to see if we can really get some traction there. i actually really wanted to see follow up with that right and i one more last thing is a happy note. i have my heart fully thankful for francis team and our historic preservation division do that extensive outreach to finish the historic contact statement for asian american out in the sunset. it was a robust outreach. i was out there and everyone was really happy that they got to share their verbal and lived history of what their grandparents told them and what

they remember and we are reversing our history. we're improving it. i remember what 18 months ago we were sitting in a in the planning department. i was moderating a movie called chinatown rising i think a little bit before i was born. you know, it was really difficult for anyone in city hall to even listen to any community that's including the chinese. it took a pastor actually show up with his video projector just to bag the supervisor if can we actually show you just just silence move just a little bit of a clip of what chinatown really looks like, how what how people lived and how he was unable to even get a notification that this kind of very important meeting is happening is because at that time the planning director invited him. >> so i think that right now we're coming full circle here. we're not just being a sort of

knee reaction to responsive to a community. we're having a very proactive way, organized way and robust way to outreach not just one minority at a time when things flare up and i'm seeing like all of you here had felt that this is very important, this is what we need to continue to listen and weigh in on this and make you feel that you are part of the decision process not the aftermath. so this is a very important thing to do and thank you for continuing the work and i wish that we will make sure that in this upcoming year or two in our fiscal situation we need to make sure that we not forget what we need to do but also do it more efficiently. thank you.

all right, commissioners, that concludes your comments. >> we should move on to item 11 for case number 20 2411 011329 for the property at 1474 south venice avenue. this is informational presentation associated with sb 423 project sponsor you have five minutes■$

to. good afternoon commissioners. . i'm the principal of rg architecture in san francisco and thank you for giving me an opportunity to present 1474 south venice some information about the project and a little background. can i see this work? >> okay great. >> so the proposed development at 1474 south venice consists of two buildings that have been owned by the mccarthy family since the 1890s. the parcel is 40ft wide 115ft deep with frontages on south venice and cypress streets covering an area of about 40 600ft2. >> i met anthony ricard to see the projects sponsored in 2021 and have been working with his family to improve the site and

add much needed housing ever since. >> at the onset of the there were many challenges with improving this property and and adding residential density namely restrictions to modifications on historic resources and the high cost of construction relative to the density that could be achieved on this lot. in addition the south venice facing building has deficiencies one would expect of an old building such as substandard foundations with portions of brick and timber and these would need to be brought up to current standards as part of this development considering these impediment, the project had difficulty gaining traction. however modifications to the residential zoning along with state density bonus and streamline approval have tipped the scales towards a potentially feasible project once again. >> as a result this version of the project that we are presenting illustrates a realistic approach to adding quality housing stock while maintaining a thoughtful contribution to infill density

that stretches into the neighborhood fabric. the proposal maintains two buildings on the lot and will create a total of nine new homes. one is the restored and augmented single family home fronting south venice. >> the other is a six storey structure housing eight dwelling units along cypress street. the project is envisioned as a four rent offering to the neighborhood and the ricard family will maintain ownership of the single family home will only see a modest increase in size about 500ft2 since area on the rear of the existing house will be removed to provide open space between the two buildings and replaced as a more practical second story addition the multi-unit building facing cypress street will consist of one, two and three bedroom units with over 40%. two bedrooms are greater for the development. every unit i d will have its own private open space and access to shared open space a total of three car parking will be included in and

including ada parking and 1 to 1 bicycle parking will be provided in addition to providing eight units of market rate homes, one inclusionary unit will be provided at very low average median income and all the new units on the cypress building will be ada compliant. >> it's noteworthy to point out that the first iteration of the project favored a taller addition to the south venice side of the property in response to zoning constraints after working with the s.f. planning department on this proposal and being guided towards zoning amendments that would soon be enacted during the process and utilizing the state density bonus, a collaborative effort was made between the planning staff and the project sponsor to reimagine the massing. >> this resulted in a scoping that maintains a lower height on south venice and gradually increases towards cypress street frontage upon which taller buildings already do exist. the architecture is a juxtaposition of old and new with an intentional distinction

between the two. the south venice edition will employ similar materials as the existing building but differentiates itself through the use of color and modern detailing. the cypress street building assumes a modern approach employing penalized and tiled facade that is durable and crisp with wood accents that soften the design the form while distinct makes a nod to gabled roofs familiar in the area. we appreciate that the new regulations have provided us with a path to potentially making new small scale neighborhood oriented housing development like this feasible under the current economic conditions and we know that it interests us to deliver a quality product. the project team doesn't take that lightly and will continue to work towards making these new homes a valuable asset to the community. >> i'm happy to take any questions. of course there are no immediate questions for the sponsor. we should open up public comment members of the public this is your opportunity to address the commission on this

item. >> good afternoon commissioners. >> my name is barbara heffernan and i'm representing an organization of all volunteers called neighborhoods united san francisco. we're a growing coalition of long established neighborhood groups, civic organizations and merchant associations across san francisco. >> and we are really deeply concerned about the proposed height and density increases in neighborhoods in san francisco. >> we oppose this project and we do understand that this is only an informational hearing but interestingly enough with sb 423 informational hearings will probably not be afforded to all projects. so fortunately today is the only opportunity we as the public have to comment on this project.

for 74 southend this is a category a resource we understand the sponsors idea of trying to preserve some modicum of this historic resource. the cottage was built in 1880 and it's in an example of an italian style residential cottage. and the building has remained remarkably intact for over 145 years. demolish this cottage and just keep the facade and attached the building for the single family house on the back. >> the project is out of scale with the neighborhood and the photographs that you saw saw a large building on cyprus at the back. it's totally out of scale with the neighborhood character. we note that the state mandates have encouraged projects like this one that really have no

integration into neighborhood character. these minute mandates were made under the guise of including affordable housing units. and we do know that just with one unit in this building the sponsor will be able to field and it will become a rental unit that has no affordable housing. and i think this is something the commission should be keeping track of moving forward with all development opportunities where there is a supposedly affordable unit. >> thank you. >> good afternoon commissioners . my name is brianna morales with the housing action coalition operating as their srf organizer. >> we are excited to see the proposed development at 1474 south venice. currently we think it's a great positive change into a an area

that could be touched with a little bit of love and care. and considering this is an informational hearing and you know the prior comments about taking actual thoughts and care towards making a project that neighbors and potential people to live in these areas is really important and we hope to see continued collaboration between the project sponsor and the community to refine the project as needed while still maintaining its focus on housing production especially with appropriate and responsible cooperations like using sb 423 and state density bonuses and things like that. i think it's really critical to address the housing crisis considering that there's a lot of people who want to have homes and are unable to. so while thoughtful decisions

are important for everyone so is maintaining and remembering that this is about bringing people in to stable living conditions. and i think that as we grow towards understanding what that really means, i'm really excited to see projects like this move forward and hope that we can keep things going. thank you very much. >> good afternoon commissioners. happy n year. congratulations to presidents so and vice president moore and your election today. i'm richard carrillo. full disclosure i am a legacy business program manager for the office of small business but i'm here today speaking to you as a resident of san francisco. i work in extra three minutes at the end of the day to make up for it. this hearing, as was mentioned, is the only opportunity

available to the public to register concern about the proposed project. 1474 south business avenue has a planning department historic resource status of category a historic resource present. it's individually eligible for the california register and is an excellent example of the italianate style residential colored cottage built in the 1880s. the exterior has remained remarkably intact. make no mistake this is a demolition project. the proposal will demolish the historic home while removing its front facade and attaching it to a new single family house that is completely out of scale with the original building. the new six story eight unit building built behind the new single family home is significantly out of scale with the site and immediate neighborhood and the architectural design is underwhelming at best. the project will include nine units total only one unit is affordable. there are dozens of draconian

state laws all of them supported by state senator scott wiener and governor gavin gavin newsom that are threatening neighborhood character and historic resources in san francisco and all throughout the state of california. the historic mccloskey building at 1687 market street will be demolished under ab 2011 and ab 2243. the proposed project at 2083 elm street which is very similar to this one would destroy an 1880s cottage under sb 423. this is the urban renewal you just discussed in item ten except it's one parcel here, one project there, one demolition over here and up zoning would make this problem much, much worse. the planning commission and especially director hillis need to be vocal about opposing these demolition projects and these draconian state laws that are destroying san francisco's neighborhood character and historic resources.

i thank you very much for your time today. last call for public comment seeing none. public comment is closed and this matter is now available for your review and comment. commissioners. if there are no comments commissioners no. >> commissioner bryan yes i just want to respond to one things. there was a comment that folks can fill out of their onsite affordable unit requirement for a state density bonus project which is not accurate that that unit has to be provided on site. so i just want to make sure that that's that's totally clear. >> thank you. thank you, commissioner campbell.

my comments are to tease out this positive aspects of this project which i just want to highlight. >> this is two units that we will now have seven new dwelling units on this site. so it's a really great densification of the property. we will have nine units at the end. i really appreciate the bike parking which i'll always say on every project that comes before us if if it's there. and i do appreciate the sponsors approach to preserving the historic italianate facade which i understand they are not required to do. but i do think that helps pay respect to the fabric of the neighborhood. a few design comments take them or leave them. i would say it would be lovely to minimize the visual impact of the elevator that's servicing the roof and the overrun. i'm sure you studied that but if that can be looked at and then for me the extension of the existing historic building or the existing building is meant to be a part of it but because of the color choices it

actually feels very divorced from it. >> so i would just recommend a little bit more harmony there and then that rear larger eight unit structure will maybe be the better one to have better look at least how it's represented in the rendering. >> so just a little bit more harmony amongst the three elements. that's it. thank you. commissioner vice president moore, this project is coming forward as an sb 423 and we are not asked as to whether or not we agree or disagree with what is in front of us as under this particular provision. we're here to add comment to the extent that we are asking the architect to be further aware of what we consider to be important i.e. commissioner campo mentioning the visibility of the elevated overrun for example. i want to kind of limit my

comments to observations that go a little bit further into that. this is actually despite the demolition and despite the historic status of the building a very interesting densification and i think something i find quite exemplary in the way it is done. >> what is unusual in response to commissioner campbell? we have a 40 foot wide lot by which this densification is easier than what we typically do on a 25 foot lot where this would be harder to do. so the architectural moves that are made here together how the site is assembled are very interesting and actually very, very much in support of it together more thorough investigation into quality of unit. ali responds etc. i do like to use this almost like a reminders for other people who are coming forward with sb 423 projects to take that kind of

more thoughtful approach. since september this is the 10th project was sb 423 and some of them were more than questionable. this one i think sets forward some very good standards and i am interested to ask the architect as to whether or not this would be potentially a candidate in this practice of sb 5491 which is a single act aspect still that is being considered a sit at under state legislation would already be in place because of that would be the case. this would be a be a wonderful prototype for that kind of a new move. would you mind answering that question if you have thought about it? >> yes. thank you for the question. it's a it's a code change potentially a that i'm not intimately familiar with. but i do know that there's certain criteria that certain buildings would fit into a

single exit type of building that would be a bigger or taller than what we currently can do with single exit buildings. this looks like it would probably fit into it. i know that it's us you could do. >> i'm a little confused between five storeys or six storey five storeys above grade plain. >> there's some some information about that that i'd have to dig into. but the bulk of the building yes would you know, minus may be a story it would fit into it. the rest of the criteria would seem we meet for a single exit building. given the you know, possible code amendments that were that are being discussed and by the way, thank you for the for the comments about the elevator overrun and those are actually good comments and i'm i'd like to consider those. >> thank you. uh, i think this is for us a moment to thank you very much for your response. this is for us a moment to also make additional kind of voice

additional expectations of what we want sb 423 projects to do well to greatly take away from not only the community to successful comment and argue for the points it has almost made it impossible for this entire commission to be critical and start directing efforts into a different way. that said, i think what we're doing here potentially pushing the idea of single access stairs which not only would make it affordable but would also create the possibility for additional units. that is kind of the message i would like to add to this particular discussion today. otherwise i think this project has brought forward more ideas and some of the others in the past have done. >> thank you very much and thank you commissioner williams . >> yeah, i, i know what i'd like to see and that's more affordable housing in this area

. >> i you know i it's hard for me to to sit here and and try to understand especially in this in the mission district i you know i lived i grew up there and i and i've witnessed the gentrification and the unaffordability of that neighborhood. and when i look at a project like this and i'm not you know, this is not about the architectural aspects of it it too but i will comment on that a little bit. it's a little bit out of character with the rest of the neighborhood. it's tall. it's it's very if if you know you can how can i put this without i don't want to be, you know, disrespectful but it's it's it doesn't fit in with what the area as it is now you know and so i just want to

comment on that and and also, you know, as far as as far as the sb 423 state law, it's requiring less affordability. >> it's giving developers more by right more density and height. and i just i just think it's the wrong way to go. you know, if you're going to if you're going to let folks build higher and denser, you would think that you'd want to incorporate a little bit more affordability because that's what we're desperately needing according to our housing element that says we've overbuilt the market rate and luxury housing you know, by 170% in this city in the last eight years and we've only reached 34% of our affordable

housing goals. i mean that's that's something to to consider. i mean it's not not your problem. um, as as the architect and as the developer on this one project but just in general i just want to make that comment because i can't really i can't we don't have any other jurisdiction so i'm just going to make that comment. but yeah that's all i to say. >> thanks. thank you commissioner imperial . director hillis would like to i ,i just want to sorry. >> oh yeah. i was like i understand this is of course as before 23 and you know this is the only intent the application has done yet and in terms of the planning department doing doing its work has to go through its process. yeah it means really but i

still just want to echo commissioner williams in terms of the concerns around as before 23 and the kind of development and you know i think in terms of the comments that we can provide are mainly around objective standards at this point standards on d and architectural design and you know again and the whole context of the you know these 1474 in south bend it's in the mission you know i mean i'm not sure if this neighborhood is actually part of the historic dist again there's no work being done yet and you know it is like for me it is quite unsettling in terms of looking into sb 423 and looking just a preliminary preliminary plans at the end of the day

affordable housing is still something that i would like to see more. but yeah, i just want to echo those comments. thank you. >> director hillis just a quick excuse me i mean one i just wanted to highlight we haven't reviewed this right. this is a little awkward in that it comes to you before we've had a chance to review it for a compliance is one thing i a couple of things i wanted to highlight one it shows two units on the side so generally you're not you know you're ineligible from 423 if there are rent controlled units that are on the site that are being proposed for demolition or if there are rent controlled units on site. so i don't we haven't looked at that question and we'll talk to the project sponsor regarding that because i just noticed it was two units and then with regards to preservation we are undertaking an effort where we're looking at, you know, vulnerable buildings that are currently classified as a's in you know, there's a wide variety of ways in the city in

recommending some do we put on put in article 10 or 11 i don't know if this would rise to that. we haven't looked at it yet. but you know, i think this is a good example. we we could propose that this be landmarked in the future and then for 23 wouldn't necessarily be eligible for a building that's that's landmarked when we want to take to we want to want to do that thoughtfully as we go through the process so i just wanted to highlight a couple of those items. this is art i think it's our tio so there's density decontrol and there's that. you know you could get the same number of units just going through the regular typical city planning process that's a 50 foot high limit so they're not getting you know an enormous up zoning through for 23 and they do have to do an affordable unit whereas if you did this under the current code it would not because it's under ten units it would you know for 15 would not apply. so just a couple things to point out as this goes. can you repeat that again?

i was always under ten units for 15 doesn't apply if you were entitling this under the the city's planning code you would not have to do an affordable unit. they're using state density bonus which requires 15% on site affordable that's one unit on the site. so just a couple things to highlight as this goes through its process. >> thank you. yeah, thank you. >> i don't have any comment. do you have any comment? all right commissioners, if there is no further deliberation and or comments we can move on to your discretionary review calendar for item 12. case number 2024 hyphen 000521 drp for the property at 411 clipper street. this is a discretionary review

so to break but just happen if you just all break sorry do you just call me something? yeah people s.f. gov we're going to take a five minut commissioners welcome back to the planning commission hearing for thursday january 16th, 2025 . we left off on your discretionary review calendar item 12 case number 2024 hyphen

0002521 drp at 411 clipper street. good afternoon president so vice president moore and commissioners david winslow staff architect at him before you is a public initiated request for discretionary review of planning application 2020 4-000 5 to 1 project proposing to demolish a one storey over basement single family dwelling and construction of a new three storey over basement two unit building the d.r. requester debra holly on behalf of ann and ashwin lundgren of 431 clipper the immediate neighbors to the west and veronica blackwell and michael johnson of 409 clipper the immediate neighbors to the east are concerned that the proposed project is not in reality designed as a a true two unit dwelling and would eliminate a prescribed easement to the rear dwelling unit to the property to the west and furthermore does not comply with

residential design guidelines related to scale at the street stepping with the topography scale at the rear and articulation to minimize impacts to light and air. >> their proposed alternatives are revise the plans to ensure two legitimate dwellings are created to maintain the existing side setback on the eastern property line of the subject property to preserve the access and egress to 431 a clipper the cottage in the back of the property to the west to maintain the west side setback to reduce light impact from 4o9 clipper and setback the third and fourth floors at the rear. furthermore a they would like to remove the drop in planters and remove the guardrail at the property line of the rear deck at the first floor roof deck as well as removing skylights that are within five feet of property lines to remove the required 30 inch high parapets at the roof.

in addition, they would recommend reducing the overall height by excavating more or reducing and or reducing ceiling heights and using translucent glazing on windows facing adjacent properties as well as setting the deck the rear decks back from the east and west property lines by five feet the to date the public the department has received 15 letters in opposition and 18 letters in support of the project staff has determined that the subject building is not in individual lee eligible for the california historic register nor does it contribute to the clipper street eligible historic district. therefore the proposed demolition of the building will not result in a negative impact to the eligible historic district. however, because the building is within the eligible historic district staff evaluated the proposed design for compatibility with in the surrounding context for conformance with the secretary of the interior's standards for treatment of historic

properties design and preservation staff therefore worked with the project sponsor to ensure that the design met the preservation criteria related to the eligible district specifically the main gable pitched the main gable roof building form is set back two adjacent buildings. well the three storey front projection moderates the scale of the adjacent buildings with with the proposed in a way that provides massing that is seen both in scale and stepping laterally with the topography. >> it's worth mentioning that for lots zoned r h within the central neighborhoods large residence special use district as this is a conditional use authorization would be required for any residential developing development exceeding 3000ft2. the proposed floor area of unit two is 2991 square feet and for unit one the gross floor area

is 2670 six square feet. therefore each unit is below the 3000 square foot gross area threshold. the project sponsor has revised their design based on information from the fired department and department of building inspection related to access to emergency egress rescue openings which also happens to maintain the historical access to the rear cottage on the adjacent property to the west. at 431 a clipper the existing west wall along the common path to the rear is being retained which maintains footing one foot seven inch wide setback on the subject property and an approximately four foot seven inch wide combined width access way between the two properties. >> in so doing the project is seen as a demolition but is not seen as a demolition by dp but rather as an alteration which enables in the alternate an alternative means of providing emergency egress rescue opening window access through the first

floor lot of details it we don't really you don't weigh in on but i just thought for reference it's good to know what's going on. >> however the staff has deemed there are a couple of small but important outstanding issues that we believe would be important to address through this door. the department appreciates the production of housing but wants to ensure they are legitimate and minimize future illegal mergers. in this case there's an easy opportunity to merge them by simply removing two doors behind the vestibule of the front main door. conversely, there is also an easy way to ensure the two units remain so by designing two separate street facing entrances which is a typical feature for duplexes in san francisco. and this can be done with little or no sacrifice to the current proposal by a simple rearrangement of doors and walls at the first floor entry. >> additionally, the uninhabited roof at the rear should be memorialized and detailed so as not to require a

30 inch high parapet at the pr to the rear cottage and by minimizing it maintain its minimal height. and this may be accomplished by creating a one hour rated roof and ceiling assembly rather than a 30 inch parapet. therefore staff recommends those recommendations as means of being insured through taking of the. thank you. >> that concludes staff presentation. we should hear from the discretionary review requester. you have five minutes. >> thank you. can we have the overhead please ? my name is scott english. i'm speaking on behalf of the d.r. requesters who are the immediate adjacent neighbors. >> so scott, as we go to the overhead please and ashwin,

veronica and mike, they're all here if you have any questions for them as the d.r. materials make clear, there are many problems with this project including its unprecedented, unprecedented size that dwarfs all the other homes in the neighborhood. you see the front you just saw the front aspect. and now you'll see from the rear how it dwarfs those other projects. but i want to focus on those other properties. i want to focus on two important and somewhat related issues. first, the developer's attempt to disguise a single family monster home as a two unit building. second, the developer's disingenuous relabel of the project as a renovation rather than a demolition. both of these smokescreens are meant to avoid appropriate scrutiny for what the project really is. it's going to be a newly constructed single family home of almost 6000ft2. the developer now portrays this project as two units each just just under that 3000 square foot threshold. mr.. mr. winslow has pointed out some design flaws and he has proposed a solution.

but respectfully i would say that solution does not address the fundamental problems that show that this really a single family development unit one the lower unit has approximately 2676ft2 but only one one bedroom with a tiny closet and a bathroom who would design a 207 600 square foot home with one bedroom and one bathroom. contrast that with unit two. it is 2991ft2 and contains three bedrooms for four full bathrooms and two powder rooms. >> what does that mean? this is one home. >> this is designed as one home. if you were designing a 20 900 square foot home the top unit wouldn't you want a separate entryway? >> there isn't one although mr. winslow is asking there be one. >> would you design the entry to that home to be on a floor full of bedrooms rather than the floor that has the living space? the living room? the family room? of course you wouldn't. would you put a kitchen in that 20 900 square foot home on the fourth floor of a building so that you'd have to walk your your groceries like my son in

his you know, his walk up in brooklyn. you have to walk up three flights of stairs to bring the groceries up to the kitchen and he's not even bring it up groceries for a full family. >> it's ridiculous. and finally, would you create a> 2900 square foot home with no access to the eight hundred square foot rear yard? >> it's astounding. now the developer seeks to take advantage of a process that's created for multifamily multi-unit buildings. that's a developer friendly process because we all want to add housing units to this to the city. but the developers design is not going to add another unit to the housing stock. it will create a monster hole which is exactly what the city doesn't need and exactly what the planning code has been amended to to not allow this commission should demand that the developer redesign a project and bring it back to you that has two legitimate units of housing. the second smokescreen involves characterizing this as a demolition under dubya's definition of demolition rather

than a remodel. the project was initially submitted as a demolition but that would require side setbacks on both sides for fire egress under modern codes so that they just relabel the project as a renovation and not a demolition. how? because they say they're going to leave one portion of one wall intact while demolishing the rest of the existing structure. >> you've got to be kidding me. this is a 100 year old wall. it will undoubtedly and convenient. lee just happened to come to light during construction. the gee that walls got to be taken down so you're going to have an after the fact demolition of a project that should have been treated that way from the beginning so you would be up to modern codes and have appropriate fire egress on both sides. now you're going to hear from others about how this how out of scale this project is for the site in the neighborhood and how the project fails to respect many of the design guidelines. but here's a map showing the overwhelming neighborhood opposition to this project.

mr. winslow said that there were also many letters of support. they're not from anybody that lives near this project. everybody that lives near this project anyone that has weighed in and lives here this project is a bit is against it. so what are we asking? we're asking you to please enforce the rules and look past the smokescreen and see what this really is. a single family monster home. require the developer to resubmit a project to you that is a legitimate two unit building with appropriate egress. >> or come back to you with a single family home and ask for your approval for that single family home. as long as that home is as sensitive to the residential design guidelines and to this site and to this neighborhood. >> thank you very much. >> we should hear from the project sponsor. >> you have five minutes.

the other side? yeah. >> hi, i'm mariam. i'm from the architecture team. there has been a lot of interest from the neighbors on this project and this is what we have done to respond to their concerns. so the existing project has been a single family home. it's incongruous with the neighboring buildings. it has a flat roof. >> we are introducing a22 unit building its gabled roof so it

fits nicely in the block. >> and we've been in communication with planning departments since very early on for this project. our are prb meeting was on may 2023 and they've been involved throughout the whole process. the project has significantly changed per their recommendations and requests to change the project. >> so this has been what we showed in our first pre-op meeting and also prv. we got comments about the roof being flat and they asked us to change it to add the gable roof the a scale and form was questionable. then neighbors have concerns about light and privacy and the compatibility in the neighborhood. >> so throughout various iteration the project has changed to a gabled roof and it has a more traditional look. the large openings are you

know, changed to a smaller opening. even the planning department gave us the size of the windows like what we should propose and of year after year we decided to keep the existing exterior wall to protect the neighbors what exists and why. >> so i'm going through some of the claims and respond to them. >> they are the they are requester claims that it is misrepresented as a two unit and it's a one unit it's a two. there are two instinct units with different features one in a higher level benefiting from the views one in the lower level benefiting from the street access and the rear yard. they they claim that the project size is out of a scale . it's the project is fully within the allowable envelope. there has been large slip setbacks applied to the project to accommodate the

recommendations of the planning department and they say the the project goes to the middle like it's too deep. so i want to show you this diagram that the read dash line is showing the existing structure and what we are proposing is actually both less steep and less high than the existing structure the a neighboring the adjacent building was claiming they are currently using one foot seven inches of the project than we were initially claiming. the whole width of the property and per the r and our response to the response has been we are going to maintain the exterior wall to protect the egress to the rear unit. >> so this diagram shows that how the project is setbacks and it's actually it's maintained in two levels and the project is actually has two levels the

existing wall has been two levels and it's going to be maintained. >> it's basically a retaining wall. it's concrete so it is not something that rutan's you know, a structural engineer easily can maintain that a day impact on light and privacy. so the project has integrate incorporated large setbacks three feet two inches at the site, five feet at the digs and larger volume which really impacts the light and light for the neighbors is setback by 1950 seven inches which is about ten feet beyond what is required. this is showing how the setbacks, how the you know there are the rear is a stepped the front is the large volume was set back by 19 seven inches and there are side setbacks. >> they then they are request there are claims that the project is out of a scale and it interrupts the neighborhood topography.

so the project is as i said it's been going through a lot of back and forth with the planning department and in the last version david winslow himself draw on our drawings, ask us what to show. so this is a pure production of you know, involvement with our with the planning department and the site topography is something that is perceived when you are on the street where as one the larger volume is set back so far than you are on the street it's not interrupting the topography. >> it's just in the elevation that it's higher. >> so here this is how the project has evolved. thank you, ma'am. that is your time. you will have a two minute rebuttal. at this time we should open up public comment. members of the public this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. each of you will receive two minutes. thank you. i am brian elliott. my wife maureen mcavoy and i

live at 435 clipper. >> we are two houses to the west of 411. >> i'll keep my comments brief. the size and bulk of the proposal is a bit out of norm with the block that's pretty obvious. it extends back sufficiently if you looked at the size of that one she's describing the red line which is the existing structure versus the new one. it's big enough that the windows to the back actually can see into our house so light and privacy is still an issue. >> as a proud yimby member i would be perfectly okay with that if i believe this was actually a two unit building. i do not believe that this is a two unit building. it is quite clear looking at the plans from the very beginning that this is being designed to be a large single family home the front entrance is being addressed would be a minimalist approach to this two completely separate entrances that are walled off from each other sufficiently would be a great starting point today the plan as is you simply walk in a front door, you leave two doors open. you have a large single family home even if there were two separate the two at the front you might end up with a situation like 222 2 to 4 jersey street which is all of two blocks away which is currently being sold as a single family home because the

developer did the same thing in terms of skirting the rules that have been set forward. >> so two completely separate entrances and preferably doing something that's either on the front first floor and second floor would be quite easy with the zoning as it currently exists or taking advantage of the setbacks that she's describing and having the second entrance be at the back rear of the house for one unit versus front of the house for the second one and you end up with what we all want which is two units of housing. if this were two units of housing i would be thrilled all of our objectives should be to make sure that we're getting more housing out of these faster regulations. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. my name is tom duckworth and i have the privilege of being a neighbor. i live my wife and i have lived across the street from this project since 1973 and we watched the neighborhood change and grow. we are not opposed to a new building going in at 411

clipper street not at all what we are opposed to is this great whale of a project that has been presented to you today and before. there is nothing on clipper street on our block on the continued two contiguous blocks that even gets close to a building this size. it just is completely out of scale. we are we are under the beat across the street. we see this building and will see it every morning when we get up. it is completely out of scale with what the rest of the is up and down the street. finally we live next door to a building that in two years will be right here at this planning commission looking for the same permission for 22. clipper is going to be a knock down and a newuiing. anything that you give to this project i'm sure will be taken by the next people up but we don't want to see that either. but i thank you very much for your time.

>> well, you've heard from the front of the house directly and back of the house at 4218 26th street. and i don't have quite the years i've only been there about 35 years as opposed to 45 years. >> and so we've seen firsthand how new valley has changed over the years and my wife and i also understand and fully support the need for more housing in the city. >> we strongly oppose the current proposal for four clipper street for several reasons. e is of course the scale and neighborhood impact which you've heard a little bit about. it's really tall. it's really deep deep this that the setback that exists right now it's a little piece that's about ten feet wide so we can look at it and we see that there's a lot more yard going on there also that it's going to impact the privacy with all the glass and i think that's

one of the requests to the translucent i mean i'll look right into our house. from that standpoint we've never opposed any previous renovations in the area but we really feel this design prioritizes profit over livability. >> the second thing is of course the misuse of these zoning rules. this is a growing trend we're seeing in the valley. basically you have this two unit place where you walk in and this is i think the fourth house i've seen now where it's pretty easy to knock out a wall or do something else to make it a luxury single family home. this is the largest i've seen but there's a there's been at least three other developments that i call them you know fo two unit designs and they're really luxury single family homes so easy enough if i bought that home or moved into that home it pays enough to

take out that that top little kitchen and you'd have a beautiful place 50 700ft2 which is three times or two times my current house. so it's pretty obvious that this is thank you that is to the single family. >> so thank you very much. >> thank you. last call for public comment seeing none public comment is closed to our request we have a two minute rebuttal. >> thank you. several responses. they did not make a series of adjustments to scale this back. they came in originally with a larger with a smaller project. but then when state law changed they came in with a larger project. they've made some minor adjustments since then but nothing that that goes to the real heart of the problem here. they say that they made a

concession about the easement on the access way on one side of the property. that's not a concession. that is a 104 year old pathway that goes back to the cottage and therefore is protected as far as a prescriptive easement . they couldn't build there anyway. it's the egress on the other side that isn't being respected and that would be required if this was treated as what it is a modern project which is a full demolition. they say the reason for the distinction between the bedrooms and the two units is because the upper unit that's a large unit for a large family well they didn't respond to what i said before that large families going to lug their groceries up for the three flights of stairs that large family isn't going to be able to have any access to the 800 square foot rear yard. really? >> so this project is what the city has tried to put some

restrictions on supervisor management passed the monster home legislation. his staff is paying close attention to this project. i ask you i know you don't want to be the re designers of every project. you don't want to tell people how they should put their project together but you've got to draw the line somewhere. we got rules to say you shouldn't have monster homes. we have rules that say you can't expedite something that's not really a multi-unit building. this is not two units of housing. please don't let them get away with it today. thank you. object sponsor you have a two minute rebuttal. >> so they claim that we are going we are getting advantage to expedite the project so that this project is going on since may 2023 and it's been going through a lot so it's not. and if if the goal was to design a single family home

they should have gone through conditional use and it would have gone much faster. >> and they are emphasizing on taking the water on the upper level a lot of people prefer to have the great views on on their living room and that's the public area. we decided to put the public area on the fourth floor so the lower level would be for the bedrooms which won't have the greatest views. >> so these are some design decisions that we have made and does this don't like interfere with the rules and yeah. >> so that's all i can say. >> well if you have any questions for us. >> yeah. and i don't know if you've seen the existing project. it's pretty ugly. you know there is a project sponsor who's willing to introduce two units get rid of

this old building. we are we are respecting the easement for the neighbor which we are not sure if it is a it they can like keep that bylaw but we are preserving that for them and we've been trying to really accommodate all the comments and you know, respond to them and that's all okay if that concludes sponsors rebuttal this matter is now before you commissioners. >> thank you. commissioner mcgarry i would like to ask the architect has this have you designed this building now so you're on this. >> have you designed this building that it can be turned into a single family unit that hasn't been our intent. >> have you decided that it can avoid designs over a project that could this project this project? you're on record. this is not your it is not your intent for this to be known. >> it is to instinct units like

commissioner braun. yes i. so i'm looking at the project. i first of all do support the staff recommendation department recommendation about having the two separate doors that lead directly to the street into the two different units because you know, i have to operate in sort of the the factual world and the planning code world in which we exist and you know, when i look at it through that lens, i can't i can't assert that these this is truly a single family home in the disguise of a two unit project. i just i don't have what i need to say that and has been for a lot of staff analysis and it's just not possible. i see that it's definitely a

risk with the way this project is designed and so at the very least at minimum i think the recommendation to have the two separate doors to the street might be a helpful change to the project to try to do something to try to eliminate the past to limit the possibility of this being merged illegally into a single family home after the fact. so i'm in support of that. i had a i have two questions. um, so one question to staff architect dave winslow and the west wall um has been a subject of a lot of discussion because that's how the sponsors are able to for dba purposes call this a renovation or instead of a demolition i believe so there's also been an assertion from the d r requestor that that west wall has window boat and then the response was actually the wall that would be retained as the concrete portion of the wall. and i've seen the pictures from

the basement level or garage level where it is there is a concrete portion there. do you know can you shed light on this? i mean it is that west wall that we're talking about is that we're not talking about routine that would a hundred year old with windows wall yeah or we so i'm not i don't have intimate knowledge i did walk that site including that side setback i believe when we were out verifying the tenancy of the unit um but i can speak generally to a wall if it's an existing wall that it so this is an up sloping lot it has a basement as you drive in and it's presumable that yeah there's probably a concrete footing at least that's part of that wall and then there's wood framing above that but i think the architect would probably be more intimately knowledgeable about it. i don't remember windows that those two levels on that west facing wall nonetheless if an existing wall is existing it gets to remain with its constituent elements whether it has a window that's non complying by today's code

standards you get to keep it if it's a and when we are talking about retaining walls they can remove all the siding, they can remove all the interior sheathing required it make it functional as far as up to grade with a one hour fire protector whatever they need to do per current building codes and from my understanding i will consider that a retained element of retained wall now the question you know i, i can't divine where and what the threshold is from dba that says if you retain this amount or that amount it's an alteration versus a demolition. but from our standpoint in the planning department this is a demolition. >> it exceeds the threat calls of demolition and from dvi they have a different different system of measuring and it's an alteration apparently according to the signed uh material you have in your or by implied by the signed material you have in

your packet from that dba and fire meeting. >> thank you. and and i mean that's what at the end of the day is is what we're again what we're operating under is dba has made a judgment about this and they're the ones who are the authority on on whether or not that aspect applies. but thank you for for trying to shed some light on it. um my other uh and my other question is about the other staff recommendation department recommendation. um about memorializing in detailing the uninhabited deck area removed so that and then removing the parapet above the roofline that would become a necessary through construction of the one our fire rated roof and wall assembly. so are we i just want to make sure i'm understanding are we talking about the deck that is currently on the pop out at the rear of the project? >> correct. it's well it's not a deck so the current drawings on a two sorry two to get a reference so yeah the current drawing plan second floor plan and a 2.30

shows uh you know one of the measures that they uh complied with you know with respect to privacy of that back cottages by setting that deck back five feet from the property line and they labeled it uninhabited rated roof right usually happy with that just drilling down a little bit finer even if that's an uninhabited roof it would need to be a fire protected adjacent to that property line so that would require an additional 30 inch fire rated parapet assembly. >> you know there's an alternate way to do that that reduces that you know, 30in in that location. i think if we can just shave it down to zero by creating a one hour rated roof assembly wall and roof assembly that goes over five feet, then you just, you know, diminishing that much more bulk and mass at that sensitive location with respect to the cottage at 431 a so okay. >> and it sounds like that is the trade that's roughly in

line with the sponsors acceptance of removing drop in planters and yeah yeah. >> um okay so i'll say i am intf modifications i think that on the whole yes it is a very large project. yes i have concerns about what really could end up happening as far as the illegal merger of the units. but like i said at the top i i'm operating in the realm of what are planning code says about this and it is a little bit of a limitation on just how far we can adjust this if it if we are talking about things that are supported by the planning code. >> um so i'm in favor of taking discretion review but for the recommendations by staff. >> thank you. thank you commission of running commission or vice versa the more i like to take a slightly more convinced approach that this project resembles quite a few other projects that the staff architect winslow and

myself and the commission have worked on over the past that this is indeed very obviously having the signs of being designed as a single farm, as a as a single family home and not as a two unit of the the typical moves which are being made are so obvious that immediately once you've seen it often nothing really here we are again to kind of round out that conversation a little bit. i would like to ask mr. ambler to seem to have looked at this building more than just in plant form. i would like you if you have a plan indicate to me was this wall to be retained is because from all i can tell the building bulges out in both directions and does not preserve an original wall that i would consider contributory i i'm asking the mr. hamlet not the architect i'm sorry mr. embleton would be the one so use the overhead again please.

>> do you have the other you know this is this shows this is from their drawings which is if you speak to the for this is from their drawings and shows what they claim is the portion of the wall to be retained and then if you look at i would like to see that in the overall demolition plan which i'm sorry isn't a little bit more legible the yellow portion there is that the portion of that wall to be retained every other wall is being demolished and is this wall a concrete wall which is somewhat unusual given what i perceives as it appears to be a concrete you have concrete footings but it is in fact a as you can see from this photo, a wood clad wall with windows given the age of the building to your knowledge or perhaps

miss holly, is this possible to even be concrete? this looks to me more like the typical wood construction was stucco on less on other parts of the building and concrete. if you had a garage in the lower portion of the building otherwise that would not be concrete. >> yeah, it's i'm not sure from the drawings it looks like it's just the the concrete portion that would be maintained on like or ten ten feet in height is my understanding. but the architect or designer told us that it's two levels of the wall which would be more than ten feet high. >> so i think it's it's not clear to us other than looking at the plans and these are the current plans the area highlighted in yellow shows the

the portion of the wall to be retained to be very honest sitting is a commission. i have a real hard time there's no proof of how this building is fully constructed to say that this wall all of a sudden should be retained and uh i believe mr. gage, did you have any kind of insight into this project of a i'm just confused that it it's clearly a wood wall. wood wood citing the foundation may be concrete but i even question the foundation in concrete with the edge of the building it's probably brick and if maybe it's the same concrete anyway yeah i know this and it's difficult to see i mean that's a very i mean you don't really need that. what does that top of a foundation even if there's a concrete i don't me i may you introduce yourself are you the licensed architect i'm not a like the like your relationship

the license architect is an and he the architect and record i am the designer okay yeah okay and the so this fall partially is underground for the existing basement and so that's where the concrete large concrete retaining walls are and it's basically to a the existing structure is to a story so partially on the ground for the garage and partially the the drawing that's the portion of the wall that to show it's savannah story. >> so we keep both on both stories we are made to in maintaining double as just by topography the first level is on the ground and it had to be on concrete to remain to maintain or retain the wall. >> thank you so much for saying that. i believe that in terms of demolition that does not qualify as maintaining a wall. i think in in in the issue of demolition there has to be something that is above grade.

>> it is above grade. >> it is it's the full i mean i'm not asking you a question. i heard your explanation. i'm talking to mr. eminence, if you don't mind. would you mind that mr. ambridge returned to the podium ? mr. image in support of the questions you ask this project lacks the sewers amount of closure even for our staff architect to be something that i could support as a something that is not a full demolition and i would also say that that hasn't been made clear to you. i believe that the things that you're pointing out relative to the diminished size of the kitchen for unit one, the switching of living area to the upper floor for inconvenience etc. has a lot of credibility to me. i've unfortunately seen to one too many of these types of projects and to be fair to the

applicant i would like the architect to be here. i would like the project to be clarified for those questions that the commission is asking and to even which architect cannot provide an answer. >> i think that is fair and so i would suggest that we continue the project have perhaps a sketch of how you would do would be to request that the department has to make to be modified and that would be my request. commissioner moore i don't know if it would help you but you know ashwin lives next door, sees that wall every day he's been inside the building. he can tell you about the construction if that would help you. >> well, i would have to ask our city attorney as to whether or not we can take the next door neighbor to describe the nature of the wall i think is a slightly more technical question that has to be really most and foremost answered by our own staff architect who would have to have to go to the

site, see what it is or have a conversation was a registered architect was responsible for this project. >> i myself cannot just rely on a visual what's a neighbor says i just going to have to kind of stick to my guns here and unless the city attorney allows us to have a neighbor's or if the neighbor is such a professional engineer or professional architect that can actually speak for the assembly of the structure that sure. >> deputy city attorney austin yang and the commission you know you can rely on information provided by staff, your own observations and even representations made by sponsors or do your requesters the way that you evaluate the that evidence may you know you may give it a different weight depending on where it's coming from and it may affect your ultimate decision.

>> so if it's from somebody who's requesting the d.r., you may you know, there may be reasons to be skeptical or there may be reasons to believe that that person has a bias in favor of a certain outcome. >> i would say that i have questions that are not properly answered. i'm going to be waiting for the commissioner campbell to push a button because she's an architect herself. the drawings in front of me too indicative of the potential danger of this being a single family home and i like to move more closely in addition to the applicant being represented by a licensed architect who can answer more critical probing questions about the project. >> those would be my comments. thank you. thank you for coming and commissioner campbell thanks. i don't disagree that it's it's suspicious when you look at the drawings i guess i'm not totally comfortable with even being put in this position of speculating on potential ill intent or potential bad actors.

>> day two shenanigans happen a lot right? i guess my question is if it were to move forward and they did in fact use it as one giant monster home, what are the repercussions because they're going to have a lot of neighbors watching so there's no law that says you can't use one family and two units. >> it's when those two units are merged to function you know, to remove the barriers to where it is functioning as one unit if you get my meaning in other words i live in a flat. a neighbor of mine lives in a flat below me. it's separated but i could buy that flat and i could move half of my family in there which would be kind of desirable at some points. >> but the minute i open up a door between those and remove a kitchen that's operating as that's going from two units to

one and that's where the conundrum comes in. .e don't know when that happens it always happens behind the closed doors and that's why we fortunately have a pretty robust enforcement team responding to issues like that because the tendency is too great for people to not do that and throughout the city35 when there's money to be made we can't see that there isn't or is a legitimate you know i mean this looks like legitimate to flats there's large kitchens in both of them. sure. is it normative to say that the kitchen on the fourth floor is not something that's typically seen? >> yes, but i'm not the one to weigh in on normative who following rules it's two separated units that has two separate kitchens by our you know staying in our lanes we have to say that that is two separate units. could it be better and be more obvious? there's two separate units. that was my recommendation that

two doors facing the street could they still merge those from inside? >> sure happens all the time. that's why we have planning staff that hopefully keeps an eye on it. neighbors that are also wary of that and will report it. i mean i'm inclined to take mr. winslow's recommended path forward as it's outlined in the brief so the motion that's my motion second that motion and then thank you for all these come and commissioner williams like to speak just really briefly how are we going to know that this hasn't exceeded the demolition threshold because it seems like that that's just looking at it looks like it is exceeds it and so there's two separate things when we talk about demolition, there's demolition by the definition in the planning code this has exceeded that. it's a demolition by our standards.

>> i can't tell you when but and when building determines when a structure is a complete demolition or not and i kind of at some point can't look over their shoulders. it's not my job to kind of question them every time. >> i doubt it unless i were an architect doing my own project i'd be following up on things like that. but i think the answer to that question is they have to go through a building permit after this they have to go through the building department. they've already gotten a pre-application meeting with a building department official that basically assessed it and responded to it as if this were not a demolition by the retention of this one wall. and the reason i know that is because the the emergency rescue opening alternatives for existing structures not for new structures and that's also adhered to by the fire department. >> so i can i can answer one it's a demo in the planning department. i can't answer for the building

and that's why i guess we ultimately have the building department in charge of their own affairs. okay. thank you. >> if there's nothing further commissioners, there's a motion that has been seconded to take d-r in approve with staff modifications on that motion. commissioner campbell i commissioner mcgarry nay commissioner williams all right. commissioner brown high commissioner imperial i mr. moore i am commission president so i so move commissioners that motion passes 6 to 1 with commissioner mcgarry voting against. that concludes your hearing today. >> commissioners meeting adjourned. thank

to the flag vice president carter which i don't like to take roll. commissioner clay resident commissioner benedicto commissioner yanez president commissioner ye hear vice

president carter i was told you have a quorum present alliance is in route. also with us tonight we have chief scott from the san francisco police department and executive director paul henderson from the department of police accountability. one item for tonight are two items for tonight line item number 12 is going to be moved up after line item one and under consent calendar the donation of funds from the community foundation for the community police academy has been removed from the agenda for tonight. line item one weekly officer recognition certificate presentation of an officer who has gone above and beyond in the performance of their duties officer christina star roster number 2154 terryville station good evening commissioner chief distinguished visitors distinguished guests also the family of christina cicero her two sons and sister and friends and colleague from the concord

police department. my name is captain bryan who i'm the commanding officer terryville station today we honor officer christina's a star for her extraordinary courage and dedication to duty on october 18th, 2024 while on uniform patrol in the terrible district, officers tostado responded to a threat report after it was coffee at 1100 ocean avenue. this location has been plagued by a suspect who persistently harassed the workers for several weeks. officers are always committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of our community responded to the call as a single person unit. upon arrival while interviewing the barista, the suspect arrived without hesitation the officers to starro attempted to detain the suspect but was met with fierce resistance. the suspect brutally punched the officer's estado numerous times in the back of the head despite being outnumbered and outmatched she utilized her o.c spray and baton and show an incredible resilience and determination for over six grueling minutes she fought bravely until backup arrived on

the scene. officers to stahl sustained numerous contusions and a significant significant laceration to the back of the head from our approximately throw punches. it is important to note that due to a dispatch error she had to endure this intense struggle alone. >> despite these form of foreign law challenges, officers just earle's unwavering bravery and quick thinking ensured that the suspect was apprehended. bringing that sense of security back to the fields, coffee workers and the surrounding community. her actions on that day or a testament testament to her exceptional dedication and the high standards she upholds as a member of our department offices, cicero was not just that dedicated officer but a pillar of strength and a beacon of hope for our community. her commitment to her duty and her community is unparalleled, making her a true credit to our department. >> please join me in applauding the officers that are for incredible bravery and steadfast dedication to serve and protect their community. she amplifies the best of what

it means to be an officer and we are proud profoundly grateful for her service. the citation states sara school police department recognizes officer christina as the star store star number 2154 terrible station in recognition of her dedication and professionalism demonstrated through outstanding community policing practices and inspiring greatness by exemplifying the ideals of the police officer as guardians of our community. such an example of dedication is worthy of the highest esteem by the city and county of san francisco and the san francisco police department. present on the 15th day of january 2025 by chief scott. >> chief of police. >> hello. good evening. thank you. thank you. police commission director henderson. commissioner clay commissioner carter over stone commissioner benedicto commissioner yee and

commissioner jonas from zoom and and also i just want to and to commissioner elias who is still enroute and commissioner walker who i think may have been around during perhaps the beginning of what started this process tonight. and chief scott, hello, i really appreciate this recognition. i appreciate the award. i appreciate that the police commission takes time to cast a i what i feel is deserved highlight upon the san francisco police department. i feel that this is less about really that day or me and i first want to acknowledge that to me this really highlights a lot of other people. this highlights my captain brian who who was an incredible leader at our station and who

has dedicated himself to this department and my station my sergeants some of whom are here i don't exist in a vacuum. this incident isn't that unique. the san francisco police department has so many different members teams, plainclothes teams, investigative unit special victims units, crime gun investigations, centers of drug market agency coordination centers, community violence reduction teams everything there are so many of us and we are doing this work and most often it is not noticed and there is no highlight on it and that is okay. that is just our vocation. that is our call not unique to san francisco police department this is police officers in general and so really for me this represent ns that which i

have the great honor to be a part of and chief scott, thank you for hiring me. i really truly appreciate it. this is where i was born and raised and it's wonderful to come back to this city and work . san francisco is in my heart. and to that end i also want to acknowledge that for law enforcement officers, our friends and family are paramount to us being able to do what we do. and here tonight i've got the blessing of great friends who are with me. my dear sister monica, thank you for telling me back when i was 22 that you thought i could be a police officer. and by the way, bart police department was hiring. i appreciate that. the rest is history and my two sons jake and luke who are my

greatest blessing and inspire me to be the very best i can be every single day. so again, i just want to say i really appreciate this and this is not something i'm accepting solely. this is something i recognize as part of a bigger and much much bigger thing which is the san francisco police department and all the incredibly talented people from command stuff all the way to the much me. this represents the good work and highlights that which happens every day without much acknowledgment. and one last thing i do want to share that i feel very much like our community really, really appreciates us. >> i don't have a shift that goes by without people whether i've helped them on a call or

just to flag me down to let me know how much they appreciate the work that we do and i really do feel very appreciative of that support and we do have it. >> we really do. so thank you all very much. thank you. vice president carter watson i just want to say your words say it all and i had the pleasure of working with christina. she worked in our office for it at at the headquarters anyway and just for the public i mean everything you do is with a high degree of professionalism and again your words it all your actions even speak louder than your words how you go about your business so thank you for coming back home to work for this police department

and you do an outstanding job. you are a outstanding person and your family i hope in your particularly your sons and your sister and your friends that came to see you and your partners and terryville and your sergeant oh all proud as am i. >> so thank you. thank you, chief officers to start i just wanted to thank you so much for your service to our city. i'm very grateful that we're able to retain someone who who grew up here and is part of the community. thank you for your actions on that day and the incident that was highlighted and i just want to recognize your bravery and as chief said, professionalism. and i also just want to recognize your commendable humility in highlighting the important work that your colleagues do and that your station does and recognize that you know today the commission is recognizing you. but you highlighted something that i think is more important

which is the everyday recognition you get from the community tt serve. so i just wanted to thank you for all of that and all of your hard work. >> thank you, commissioner. >> ye thank you very much there vice president carter oversight officer christinaetera. >> we want to thank you for all your hard work and what your action did on that day is upon me what san francisco police officers all about public safety in face of adversity and the challenges you showcase courage and bravery and you know you kept that in your heart is the public safety and i commend you for that. and i also want to thank the family and your support from that i guess from your park terrible station and thank you captain who for putting her for

long overdue. >> thank you again. thank you. thank you, commissioner benedicto thank you very much, mr. vice president. congratulations again, officer to start a echoing what my fellow commissioners the chief said. thank you, captain, for bringing fernando in this officer and thank you to your incredible support system both professionally and personally for showing up to support here. i also know your actions were incredible and commendable and really reflect well on the department and i really appreciated that you in your remarks focus on the community factor, the role the community plays in your work. i think that we talk a lot about community policing at this commission in this department and i think that the most important place where that lives is that it's talked about in the in the officers that are with the community some grateful that you acknowledge that. so congratulations again you're a testimony the department thank you thank you

commissioner clay thank you mr. vice president. >> and i just want to echo to piggyback on comments my other commissioners here you know we all thank you for your service and your bravery but more importantly your articulate comments about your service here, your members, your support for this award is so meaningful and i saw a lot of heads nod as you were speaking and your words and everyone was very touched by what you said because it meant so much to them and so keep doing what you do. we really are grateful to have you here in san francisco. >> thank you very much. judge clay for late breaking comment from director director henderson. i just want to say i do appreciate you know, i appreciate the work of the service especially for someone that grew up here. it's nice to see a native giving back and committed in public service and the way that

you have with your entire career here. so thank you for that. but also i think we should make these commentaries mandatory that was tested and it was great to hear you you know your words echoing your sentiments and also reflection from the community about the feedback that you get on a regular basis from people for the work that you do. so i appreciate that we should make that a mandatory part of these processes so that we can hear more of the inside. but thank you so much for your continued service. >> thank you very much. >> i don't think i can run if any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item one the weekly officer recognition please approach the podium. >> sorry i'll be brief. david elliott lewis, member of the crisis intervention team mental health working group you know it's not an easy job and

to get beaten up this trying to protect the public and survive for six minutes of assault without backup it's phenomenal it's i mean it's not it's not called for and yet she did it. >> so what a remarkable testament to courage and performance. bravo! bravo. congratulations, officer sister . thank you. >> all right. line item 12 discussionnd possible action to approve revise department general order 6.1 for psychological evaluation for adults for the department to use a meeting and conferring with the affected bargaining units as required by law discussion and possible action. >> good evening, chief. good evening, vice president carter roberson good good evening commissioners and good evening director henderson. i'm excited about this general order update.

it is a long time coming i think just over two years we've been trying to update this general order before i get into some talking points about the changes in the general order i just want to thank the following individuals for their collaboration in the process early on sergeant laura anderson she couldn't make it today she did have a lot to offer in this general order. i also want to recognize from dpa janelle keywood and jermaine jones they were also involved in the process early on so i want to recognize them. the city working group this is something that we bring to our working group and share the process and get feedback from our working group. david ellie lewis is here. i want to express thank you to them for helping with this process. >> and you know, before we actually got here to this point early last year the city unit and the s.f. fire department

fire community paramedics team under the direction of assistant deputy chief april sloan they were doing joint roll call trainings at each district station and visited each watch and there was a lot of feedback that was given at those roll call training. >> so i also want to express thanks to assistant deputy chief april sloan for stepping in and offering some feedback and helping us through this process. so a couple of the highl that i want to mention about the policy is that this policy centers on humane compassion. a compassionate approach emphasizes de-escalation diversion and reduces stigma around mental health issues. >> it aims to decriminalize mental health crises, prioritize alternative responses and integrate non-law enforcement resources. it focuses on reducing confrontations and involving specialized mental health

resources to avoid unnecessary arrests. it encourages collaboration with non-law enforcement agencies and emphasizes crisis intervention de-escalation strategies. this ensures a better outcome for individuals in crisis is strongly encourages collaboration with non-law enforcement agencies and outlines protocols for involving these entities. >> officers would attempt to have other non law enforcement agencies intervene unless the individual is violent and presents a public safety risk or is exhibiting presumptive indicators and this is something that we are going to be addressing with our members through training. >> it promotes diversion to mental health services and an alternative care to limit law enforcement's role in non-criminal mental health situations. it retains the criteria which is danger to self danger to others gravely disabled but expands on the definition to

include severe substance use disorder and integrates a more comprehensive assessment and this is through sb 43 it adds guidelines to obtain search warrants and use a gun violence restraining orders when appropriate so those are the main changes in this general order and i'm open to any questions if there is any question please. yeah. >> thank you very much. there, lieutenant anderson, i had a question because i got a call from i guess swipe guinea outsider by 5150 and they wanted to press charges felony assault and when they went back to the police department, the individuals i guess transported to a private peace piece which

is, you know, another hospital because san francisco general was full upon the investigation. the person was released and i guess by a private institution without contacting the police department. how can we prevent that from happening again? and when you have that incident ,is there a way to identify the victim because there was no i first carry no i.d.s. you know, i just want to know your thoughts on there. >> i would need to actually review that specific incident just to get like the details of what happened in that case. it's not uncommon that when individuals are transported utilizing an ambulance they may go to another hospital and not piece. >> and this is still discussions that we're having on if they're in custody

because of an arrest is that their appropriate location that they should be at? that is something that we're still trying to figure out and discuss with other agencies. it's is beyond the police department. i think there's got to be more discussion on this and with that involves other agencies as well during and another question is once the person been apprehended by the police is there because the person has no id, is there a way to i guess book them or fingerprint them to id the person who they are if it's just a mental health hold and we cannot identify them that would it be the most appropriate process only because there's no crime that we're addressing if there is a crime that usually is how that happens they get booked pending id because if it's a citation and released that person still has to be

identified prior to being cited out so that that typically happens. but again not knowing all the details of this specific incident, i would need to look more deeper into that. >> okay. >> so you're looking into it and probably is going to be i guess going forward in the future it's more discussion on this or if you want to send me details of that i can look into the specific incident. i'll be happy to do that. thank you, lieutenant. >> and i do also want to thank you because i think this is your general order that was assigned to you so you were very patient with us. so thank you very much. >> okay. >> commissioner benedicto, thank you so much, mr. vice president. thank you, tony anderson for the work on this video. i think it's an important ago that i'm glad to see come out of the process. i want to thank commissioner you for being the commissioner responsible. >> i really want to echo your

acknowledgment also of the city working group. i think we've all seen that you know, for those of us that have been fortunate to go to the city awards that have an interaction with the city and the city working group and the work city does is really an invaluable part of this department's approach to modern policing. i also want to note that commend vice president carter oberstar and commissioner yanez who've been really tireless advocates of the city team as well and would happily make a motion to approve this department general order pursuant to our labor relations resolution 2330 for use in bargaining our second that motion if any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding youngblood oh this is commissioner young. you did have my hand up and have two comments.

i really thank you for the presentation lieutenant. i think this is a really well written dga so i really appreciate the effort to destigmatize you know, people with mental health disorders and acknowledging that there are challenges with co-occurring disorders. right? people who are also using substances and to self-medicate. i think the the scripts and in the advisement section are really, really important to have included and it gives us a roadmap, a template and examples for how officers can convey information in a respectful and professional manner especially considering crises situations when it comes to working with people in ad during an episode or when they're having a mental health crisis. >> i do have one question and i would like to make a friendly amendment if the commissioners agree i■j the question is with

regards to section e2o where it indicates that then we find adhere to that hope when a psychiatric evaluation is requested by an individual who is not at the scene and is not providing third party information the officer should conduct their own independent and this is the challenge or the word that i have a little bit of a concern about is it says that the opposition could conduct their own independent psychiatric evaluation and take appropriate action consistent with welfare institutions. code 5150 and the concern that i have there is that a psychiatric evaluation is a clinical evaluation ation and i don't know that we intended to convey to the public or to officers that they are equipped

to implement a psychiatric evaluation. so i'm going to would like to make a motion or friendly amendment to remove the psych patrick the word psychiatric from that section and replace it with something more along the lines of an independent assessment or just leave the word independent evaluation so that we are not getting into a realm of clinical diagnoses when in fact we do not intend to do that because we do not have that capacity in our department. so i, i would like to know what your what your comments are on that and whether the department chief whether you would be amenable to that recommendation . >> yeah, go ahead. i don't see any harm in removing and changing it.

maybe mental health evaluation versus psychiatric. >> i hear what your concern is and we are we don't want to make it seem like we're doing medical evaluations when we're not trained to do those types of evaluation evaluations on the street. the only thing that i would like to do before that is done is making sure it's consistent throughout the general order. if that was the only place that it was in then that would make sense. >> that's just my recollection. i just reviewed the general order again today and that is the only section where i saw a reference to a an officer or department personnel actually engaging in some sort of psychological evaluation. so i'm comfortable with the language that you have identified and i'd be on board with voting to it so authorized this with that friendly amendment if the commission accepts its that's fine with

with me oh you got no i agree with both the lieutenant anderson and commissioner young yes i think that's a fair at it . i'm glad you could just say okay perfect thank you that that's my feedback. >> so with the change me to remove psychiatric and just keep the word evaluation is that the change that we're correct with? >> i'm sorry i heard something different i thought lieutenant anderson said change it to the mental assessment and a mental health assessment. >> okay. so replace the phrase psychiatric evaluation with mental health assessments. >> that would be reasonable. okay. okay. do you want to do you want to restate your motion? >> yes, i'll make a motion to to approve this pursuant to resolution 2330 with the one change that commissioner yanez has suggested to replace i don't think that page and our staff can get it psychiatric

evaluation with mental health assessment i will second that any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item 12 please approach the podium. david elliot lewis. about a over a decade ago i joined the city working group we call it the crisis intervention team mental health working group. it was a working group that was created thanks to this very police commission in 2011 you felt you had findings that resulted in recommending it. the chief at the time implemented it. it was created and it's been really helpful to see that program is remarkable. >> it provides field service to people in need. it provides training to officers. they've trained something like three quarters of all the current active duty officers and it saves lives.

>> 15 years ago when there was a crisis response to somebody holding a knife or a gun, the outcome was almost universally horrible. it was often fatal loss of life or severe injury. now often when somebody is holding a weapon, brandishing a weapon to an officer, there's a good chance that person could be talked down de-escalated safely taken into custody and brought to help. >> that's a remarkable change. it hasn't always happened but it happens a lot happens more often than not and all those lives have been saved because i believe because of the city training, because of training officers to employ the three critical principles of de-escalation of creating time distance and rapport and it works. the program works and it works through training, it works through field operations all the all the stations now have have liaison