>> sue hester who's been doing eirs in san francisco since i started one of the things that really is unclear to me and other members of the public who is in charge of the public this is not explained clearly and one of the unusual circumstances for example, on 5 m you had a presentation that started with the planning department but quickly transitioned to ken rich and the developer we have other projects that are being handled by missouri he had and other parts of the city you've got to tell people where to find files abused a person like me that reads an eir not only reads the eir but looks at for the file to know the project there was a lot of a.m. gut about the 5 m recorded that has multiple approvals in multiple places it wasn't an area plan and the first preservation we've had was before the eir i have been looking in the eir for who i contact who's in charge of the project that should be explicit in the eir partly because go planning is good about providing records we see get records fast in the planning department thank you sensitivity people and the bureaucracy dealing with r

project long before the draft eir comes down i think the public should know what it contains as sue hester said i see the reason to expend the comment period if we have the information ahead of time unless there's errors or new information possibly multiple sites for the 4 reasons the fourth a lot of holidays but as you pointed out the eir comment period for both hunters point shipyard and park merry kidney were shorter periods of examine but it's important if there's any of the above we allow a few more days if there's a problem that on the environmental does it could have catastrophic consequences if an appeal is supported in the future basically can end a lot of projects so adding a few days is not the worst thing in the world i totally agree with the perimeters you've set and the more we can learn about projects ahead of time we tend to shape the scope of the project particularly larger projects than the environmental piece didn't come as a surprise because people can fourth about traffic and other impacts of those projects we have. >> director ram. >> i wanted to reinforce one recomme

. >> sue hester with two things. first thing is would you pay particular attention to speaking into your microphones. it's really hard hearing the audience when people sit back and assume that voice is going out. that applies to commissioners as well as the public. second thing is we have become supremely jaded. the last hearing of this commission was a long hearing because of comments on the 5m eir. at the end of the meeting the planning commission extended the comment period in presence of all the people watching online, in home or in the audience. that was reversed at 5:00 on friday by the planning department. the notice came to a couple of us. it was 5:00 on friday. friday when people were leaving for thanksgiving. it didn't even come to the commission sector to the commission. a couple of you got the notice. people who got the eir and eir notice or who attended the hearing or saw it online have no idea what the planning commission, that the planning commission was over ruled by staff. the new deadline is decembe

hester. i think it might be something to do. i may have been the one asking a lot of those questions. i have a question, how did us this tie into the affordable housing fees, when is that nexus up for review or fees? >> that's a great question. the mayor's housing on community development manages the affordable housing nexus study and as far as i understand they are looking at scoping a focus update to that to answer some of the questions about reaching the mayor's goals and serving a variety of income levels. so as soon as we have more information about that, i will be happy to report back to the commission. >> thank you. >> sure. >president cindy wu: commissioner johnson? >commissioner christine johnson: i will keep my comments to the nexus study here with affordable housing and transportation nexus study are different and will be done in the future by different teams and different groups and they will be here later. i just want to focus on this one for now. a couple of things. the first is there was a statement made in the re

. >> thank you commissioner richards and i think hester mentioned something about the mayor's office with the mo d would you that that is extraordinary circumstances with multiple files and places hard to get to them. >> that's really a case by case question you know the draft eir is intended to contain the information this is the review period of the draft eir specifically. >> i think the access to file you know an important issue in its own right may or may not have any bearing on whether the review period for the draft eir is sufficient okay. thank you. >> commissioners that place you under general public comment not to exceed 15 minutes all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar, are considered there will be no separate discussion of these items which event the matter shall consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing. i have no speaker cards but i see one in the box. >> any general public comment. >> sue hester back again i sent an e-mail to all of the commissions two weeks ago telling you i thought i needed to have on our calend

>> sue hester preparing for the 5 m comments may me think a lot about housing we've had massive shifts in demand between counties and no one no where in the places i've seen is the planning department facing how much demand is being shifted into san francisco pride housing for people working on the peninsula down to santa clara county being bused up here and displaced uses between residents because of people being bused are well paid men in their 20s and 30s and the people being displaced especially in the mission and south of market tend to be low income and middle-income people that can't afford to live in their neighborhoods if you don't start with adequate information at the start you're not doing anything to help any of us you need to not just help go out there without understanding what is going against providing housing to people who are goals that may have been set two or three years before circumstances changed another thing i started focusing on was with what is the build out project year the big projects in the pipeline like the hope project are 10 years down the line we wil

>> sue hester. i have been around long enough time that i went to all the meetings on the eastern neighborhoods plan, and the studies that were done were based on 2006, 2007, 2008 data. guess what? we were in an economic slump during that period. so all of the assumptions the grounding for the area plan are out the window. i have no idea who the guy was who testified on the dog patch building. he was talking about eight projects going on under construction in a very small area. he is a real person. what has happened is everyone assumed the conditions were going to continue to the date that their plans are implemented. they are not. the transportation problems alone are monumental. what plans do we have for managing the traffic when there's not the incentive for ups and fedex and amazon to make delivery at will at every block and block muni buses as well as traffic. what assumptions were made of chaos in basic construction disasters. i witnessed one today just south coming to city hall. everything is

>> sue hester. i was glad to see the eir coming out on this. i would ask it be widely distributed to people that are affected by the project. that includes the people who live there. the bicycle coalition dominates all public meetings. i was working in this area where the warriors project was coming to pierre 32 and there are a lot of people who live in this area. they live on the east side of second street in various condominium projects, they know what it's like to live in the area and what it's like for traffic to choke the area after the ball games getting onto the freeways . it's not likely to disappear. so people really need to participate in this and i'm going to send out my own e-mails and i hope it's an honest effort to circulate the eir beyond the bicycle coalition numbers, who comes to all of our meetings for sure on there. the people who are not on there are the people who live there. i would ask that they really pay attention to all the condominium complexes along second street because

. >> sue hester. i'm here to actively support this. when we did the rezoning we created a couple orphans and this is last one. this eliminates all the tables with the zoning on it. thank god. yes, after 8 years of work, yes, yes. thank you. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner richards? >commissioner dennis richards: i move to approve. >> second. city clerk: on that motion, commissioners, commissioner >commissioner michael j. antonini: >commissioner rich hillis: >commissioner christine johnson: >>commissioner kathrin moore: >president cindy wu: this passes 6-0. this places you on item 12 for case no. 2014.0417. for 531 castro street. this is for conditional use authorization. >> good afternoon, president of the commission and planning commission this is for an application for 531 castro street. project sponsor conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code section 703.3, 703.4 and 303c and i to convert the existing vacant patio restaurant into hamburger maree

hester made and i would like to ask the city attorney if the commission for all the correct reasons requested a continuance is entitled with more motions made than anything else and the eir to look at it careful ly and is mandatory for us that is overloads -- over ruled and that we are not notified in a timely manner. would you please comment on that? >president cindy wu: i do think we should not take comments at this time because it was not agendaized i think we are treading on a certain line. i will follow up with secretary and the attorney to get an answer. >> okay. >> can i also relating to the same thing. >commissioner michael j. antonini: i don't expect an answer now but it's for staff to look into. i believe we have voted for january 15th if i'm not mistaken what the time was and i asked within the hearing as to any limit on the amount of time that could be allowed and i don't know whether it had anything to do with the truncate of the period. >> my recollection from that hearing and this goes more generally to how we handle things at the commission level was that i don't remember actu

hester talked about this it is this different from the projects we've looked at here. >> commissioner richards for the purposes of this hearing we shouldn't are a back and forth they'll respond in writing and that's one question the other thing i support i don't know if it's legal or not we need to get real when we talk about affordable housing we're talking about creating affordable units how can we not talk about that without talking about people that are being displaced we needed need to get real about the nonprofits spaces this is going to be you know a great fabulous project in angle area it's traditionally been low income so you what is going to happen to the people and on the open space i have a concern about the fifth floor being considered an open space i asked the developer how it works in the united states i said tell me about one globally i can't see myself urging the open space i agree with the childcare i want to see the area plan maps and i have a question why when a wasn't this in an area plan i support commissioner moore's 0 estimation to january 2015 i like the fact

sue hester the attorney for san franciscans regional growth what david said is true we had a 10 year struggle, of course, to talk about the impacts of the office impacts i'm going to concentrate on two areas please use a map and it is chosen to put the maps to the downtown plan with outlines that show downtown plan, mission bay south of market rezoning realistically, eastern neighborhoods area plans, western selma, central selma, transit center how close and what overlap on this plan the second thing i want you to pay attention to transit and traffic what mechanisms happened last night there was a major ball park in the entire south of market and in the financial district on transit going to the bridge blocking all the intersections all the way around wherever those covets backs up happen the first one is the victim is transit circulation is there any proposal or any mechanism roadway there's a debriefly of what happens when traffic comes to a grinding halt muni lost runs that's i don't understand that the area around this project has been totally bunker because of the combination of

. >> sue hester i've had my office at town and market for 35 years 1 or 2 blocks away, however, you measure it there is been a state of really big land use proposals that are going through in that area at the same time one of them is an actual rezoning central selma and this project and there is a mid-market rezoning to upscale to 2 hundred feet and above from my building down to leavenworth street and you're not treating them as rezoning and they are when we went through the process of the eastern neighborhoods and rincon hill and everybody else e everywhere else there's a separation from project and planning this is one big thing dumped into the same hearing and one big thing dumped into a seven hundred page document which is the next item we need some respect in this area there is been no consideration of low income populations in the tenderloin and in the south of market there existing people people have offices and have operated residential and retail businesses in this area for as long as i've been in the city more than 35 years in my office so when are we're going to set back and is

regards to the goals and i everything that ax paradox it is for those stay security i agree with sue hester the population is different than 10 years ago we have to make sure our population goal is current not that existed in the past and also taking into consideration those who are working in san francisco in addition to those who are residing in san francisco because we still have approximately 53 percent of our workforce coming from outside of san francisco and wherever we can create the housing to meet that demand and entice people to live inside san francisco and kits down on pollution we're doing a lot to do that with things like transbay and rincon hill and a lot of the developments and many under construction and i think we're going to see particularly with transbay a big change in some of the numbers once those units come online we think it's a third are affordable that will make an impact on the affordable housing needs when we get those off completed and they're being built so to speak and a lot of those are ready to break ground so those are some of my thoughts i'm in agreement

. >> reporter: the obelisk's biggest critic, neighborhood activist karen hester. >> it is tacky. >> reporter after our story ran last summer, the district agreed to put the project on hold, yet now here it is in the flesh. >> it is how we want it to be. >> reporter: that is what one of the district board members said, but tell that to karen. >> it made us a laughing stock. >> reporter: she gathered more than 200 signatures online causing a meeting in august. >> and then only seven people showed up to the meeting. >> reporter: so the obelisk went up. >> it almost made me cry. this is worse than i thought. >> reporter: but karen says there is one silver lining, she says the uproar will force the district to seek more public imput next time. as for what will happen next? >> it is permanent. >> nothing is permanent in my mind. >> reporter: they will have to agree to disagree. in oakland, christin ayers, kpix5. >> the cost of the obelisk, $20,000. split between the district and the property owner. >>> a whole new liner, andria borba shows us why people look different in one part of the bay area t

. >> major hester dixon wears a different uniform on this distribution day as a brown street salvationrmy center. but her mission to help ease the suffering of mankind is divinely in place every day. >> i was ask god it rain down toils. we help everybody. if you can help, you get help, in fact, you don't have to bring a whole lot of identification or proof, if you come here, it seems you need us. >> as the need grows, so does the generosity. wanda jones calls the salvation army blessing. >> i'm a single mom. so, you know, try to get as much help as i can. and my kids is always blessed, even with the little stuff that they get, they get for christmas, they are blessed. >> times are hard. everybody can make a difference. >> thanks to the salvation army, thank you all. >> oh, yes, it is game time, game time for the children, our "joy of sharing" campaign is well underway, and did you hear that, listen, hello, hello, hello? this truck is empty right now. and we need to fill it up. we need to fill it up with your help to drop by our stations here at 1555 hamilton street, and drop off a toy,

philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, waking up tomorrow morning, temperatures in westchester, cleft hester, upper 20s. locally, clouds starting to make their way into the area. we have dry. snow to our west and southwest. this should be staying out of the area. as we go into the weekend, the weather pattern looks drier, too. future weather showing us staying dry and cold. overnight tonight. friday looks dry and cold as well. but as we go into the weekend, and maybe a little more in the way of cloud cover. does stay cold. that storm system that you see staying to our south now. originally earlier in the week it looked like it would be moving through. now the models have updated. should be stayi ining farther s. expect mostly dry conditions. a cold weekend for you. cold and breezy through the rest of the evening. overnight temperatures, mid 20s north and west. 30 degrees for the morning low in philadelphia. tomorrow, tvemperatures in the low 40s. cold, breezy day. not as gusty as today. temperatures low 40s. winter starts this weekend though it's felt like winter anyway. next week, chance of

. >> michael hester, nicknamed grinner, is a 25-year veteran freelance photographer who works the drag race circuit. >> that's one for the real boys! i hopped the wall and grabbed a second camera, and it was kind of a seamless thing. >> watch another angle as the car flies at grinner. covering him with sparks and flames, it's almost inconceivable how he doesn't get crushed. >> that was close. >> he holds his camera steady until the very last second. >> you know, just standing there like i was hypnotized thinking, what a great shot. i'm looking at the screen. i'm looking at composition. and i hate to say that, but carnage is the money shot in our world. we hate wrecks, but tv loves it. that's why the spectators come. that's what i was thinking, what a shot! and then i realized i was a part of it. and then i realized i had to do something about it. >> but you still have to wonder, why didn't he move away earlier? >> you know, hindsight is 20/20. should i have gone sooner? yeah, i'll give you that, you know? but i didn't know where she was going. she was on the wall, man. typically, they'