have full faith in these operators will acknowledge and actually work with the code and -- and the conditions that we're imposing on this project. in the past we have approved project and some some haven't been responsive and they lost their p c1 been responsive and they lost their permits. we just don't go around handing out permits. there's a lot of scrutiny that goes into it from the public health to planning. s to not just something that happens overnight. so there's a lot of work before it gets to us and i have faith it's going to be a good, positive project for the mission. there is none the closest one m mission. i think the closest one might be 15th and mission, which is further down and then there's some on valencia but there really isn't in that location that's close to public transportation and as someone mentioned there are other health services in that area that i think complement this as well. that being said, will move to approve. >> second. >> commissioner saguy? >> i'm supportive. however, that was with conditions, right, commission olague? >> yes, with conditions, definitely. >> i would like to move one -- don't know if it's a finding or whatever, down into the conditions. and that would be the one related to patients who will not be permitted to smoke or inhale product via vaporizes provided on the site. >> the project is not proposing on-site smoking. you want that as part of the finding? >> i do. >> i would be happy to do that. >> that's fine. >> that include vaporizing? >> yes. ok. >> and that's going in the findings, right? right. that's fine. >> commissioners, the motion on the floor is to take discretionary review and approve the project with conditions and one of the findings would be that patients would not be allowed to smoke or vaporize on site. with that commissioner antonini has stepped out. commission fong? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commission saguyia? >> aye. >> commission saguyia? >> aye. >> commission olague? >> aye. >> commissioner miguel? >> aye. >> thank you, commissioners. the motion has passed unanimously. you are now on item number 21, case number 2010.0770d for 2278 washington. >> good evening, commissioners. sarah vellve, department staff. proposing to reauthorize a curb cut and parking pad approximately 11 to 15 feet deep by 8 feet wide and authorize a new fence and gate to screen offstreet parking. the concern involves the construction of the parking be done without a valid permit, the front area where cars are parked is not deep enough to accommodate the parked cars on the parking pad and regularly projects on the property line and sidewalk. the curb cut is not wide enough to accommodate an area needed by two cars that consistently are parked in the parking pad. put ago parking pad in front of the house that used to be a landscaped area is out of character for the neighborhood and diminishes its aesthetic appeal and value. the parking impediment were originally constructed as a permit signed by by the department of building and inspection. they never saved final inspection and permit expired. as a result complaints about the project and expire permit, the department issued notices of violation and director held in 2008. an order of abatement was issued requiring an owner to obtain the work or remove the parking pad or restore the curb. in 2009, a building permit was submitted for review to reauthorize the curb cut and parking pass and authorize a new gate and fence to screen the parking. this is the subject of today's hearing. at this time the department is recommending the commission take discretionary review and modify the project to eliminate curb cut and restore the curb, require restoration of the curb at the property line and as far as cocompliance of the fence above the curb reaching no higher than three feet. the following are the department's recommendations -- the proposed parking area is an insufficient depth to comment the length of most cars. there is no public benefit of eliminating a 16 foot long curb cut that accommodates many sides of cars for one off-street parking space that accommodates one small car on the side of the property. the proposal is inconsistent with the general plans urban development and section 101.1 of the planning code, and the proposal is inconsistent with the residential design guidelines and eliminates condition between the public and private realms of the streets. i'm available for any questions. >> thank you. you are the requester? larry nolan on behalf of the neighborhood. so, sarah distinctly told the story that permit -- the work was done without a permit and the rework should be done to put it all back together in the same original design because that is what suits the neighborhood. >> thank you. there are any speakers in favor there are any speakers in favor of the g.r. request? >> excuse me, my name is donald. i live and own property at 2263 washington street across the street from this project. and about 18 years i lived there, i have never seen anybody tear anything out quite like this and park two cars perpendicular to the building on a concrete pad. in essence as stated before, cars do not fit there. so it's against the code. i don't know why it's been going on for such a long period of time. just about two years of sitting there, a thick, concrete pad. i think we have pictures here that will show the structure before, not very good pictures unfortunately. that's before. here's another one, not very good either at night that we can see that do stick out over on to the sidewalk. if there were to be a fence there, it couldn't close anyway so we are requesting that everything be put back with some hesitation in the way it was and the curb cut removed. thank you. >> additional speakers in favor of the requester? if not, project sponsor. >> good afternoon -- evening. my name is jared, architectural draftsman who was contracted to by the family to put this together. i would like to start with a little bit of history first. this project started seven years and two months ago when a member of the joel family went down to the planning department and asked if they could legally park their car on their property in front of their house. at that time planning staff indicated to the applicant they couldn't do it. they reviewed the code at that time and said that it was a -- the project scope was feasible. they brought me in thereafter to help them get a build perg mitt and i didn't actually see that the project scope was feasible with my understanding of the code. so we were instructed at that time to ask for a letter of determination to jim nixon, acting zoning administrator at that time. in december of 2003, i wrote a letter to the zoning administrator jim nixon at that time to ask him for a letter of determination. that letter was received on january 7th with plans at that time. two months later, february 25th of 2004, we have a letter back from craig -- i hope i'm pronouncing his name right, acting zoning administrator at that time saying we could indeed do it. at that point in time we went ahead and applied for and paid for building permit in 2004. as part of that building permit we were also required to get a street use fee that was paid for in october 6th, 2004, and an engineering inspection fee that was on november 18th, 2004. at that point in time i kind of stepped out of the project. i delivered a building permit to the contractor and owner inunderstand then that years later that this permit is no longer being considered valid and we are reapplying for a permit. there are a couple of things different for the permit in question today. the original permit called for landscaping that was never put in the plan, that was never built in the real world. when the contractor or subcontractor put in the parking pad, never put in the landscaping that was supposed to be there. also additionally in the original letter of determination back in february of 2004, there were supposed to be landscape screening and also a gate to cover the parking and a one-car parking plan. on the purpose of this permit at this time is to add the gate at the require -- and required landscape screening and curb cut that was already approved in 2004. there's a couple other things that are different between the permit applied for now and the one that was 2004. along the street front is there are existing plants there on either side of the property. on either neighboring property that encroached into the city's right away. as part as planning instruction this time around is that we matched the planter with the existing neighborhood planting. so we revised our permit in october of 2009 to show planters on our -- outside of our property adjacent in the city's right of way. we also had to apply for minor encroachment permit as instructed to by city planning and also another building permit application that was done in october also of 2009. so the joel family feels they asked for the permit in all legalty. they were told they could have a permit and they do everything they could except actually pour the concrete themselves and they're asking you to reinstate the permit for their curb cut. thank you. >> thank you. there are any speakers in favor of the project application? if not, the d.r. requester has a two-minute rebuttal if you wish. >> good evening, again, larry nolan. the family does not live in the house. it's been turned into an apartment complex, which creates the use of cars and parking becomes an issue. so there's one car parking space that you are hearing about is currently occupied by two cars and what's going to happen is couldn't really tell in the pictures but i believe you have the pictures with you is that the gate will not -- the gate and the cars will not fit. so it's just a mathematics problem that these are pictures of two small cars and if you put a gate there, it's not going to work. so we would like it restored to its original -- original view. >> thank you. project sponsor, you have two minutes if you wish. >> i agree with larry, original intent of the permit was there was never supposed to be two cars there and the landscape buffer that was supposed to be there to keep cars within the property is not there now and it needs to be added off the gate that's supposed to be there to screen the cars on the street is not there, and that's part of the permit we're applying for now is mitigate all of these concerns that they have. >> thank you. i must say i went out there and actually measured the parking pass and there's no way it can take two cars. in fact there was one car parked diagonaly on the space hanging over the sidewalk at that time. i'm no positive in my mind with landscaping and with the gate how it would even take one car. i would not like to park on it or try to because of the space considerations, plus in my mind it's totally ought of character with that neighborhood and most residential neighborhoods of san francisco in that manner. i feel bad in some degree because of what i consider mistake made in permitting going back. unfortunately too many years. but there's nothing i can do about that. and i have no one to call up here to ask for explanations because it went too far back unfortunately. but we have to deal with what we have now. and in my mindly go with the department's recommendation. commissioner antonini? >> i agree. although there may have been some confusion in committing all you have to do is kind of i think use zphens on this and nobody else probably has a bunch of cars parked in the front card of their homes there and it doesn't look right to me. i would say i would agree, make a motion to agree with -- take the staff recommendation, which basically gives -- take discretionary review and require one two of modifications. so the way it's written, correct me if i'm wrong, staff, they would have the option to do one of these two things. the first is to eliminate the curb cut, restore the landscaping and a new fence revise a scope of the work to include a garage insertion so they would have the option of doing one of those two things. >> second. >> ok, thank you. session. if you don't mind, if you would indulge me, we are going to continue item 23 to january 13. that his case number 2008.0021emtzw. the mission -- initiating planning codes, zoning map, and general plan amendments as part of kirk -- parkmerced's the element project. commissioner antonini: to continue that item to january 13. >> second. >> public comment? on a motion for continuance? president miguel: is there any public comment on the motion for continuance? >> eric brooks, green party. just briefly, this is a good idea. with the amount of turnout at the last meeting, without all of you here, it is important to get as much input from the public and from all of the commissioners as possible. >> a good evening. i want to second what eric brooks said. there are a lot of documents on sustainability, open space, and the development agreements that were published tonight and handed out. a lot of people have not looked at them yet. thank you. president miguel: yep. >> in the microphone. >> i would like to put this in here. earthquake map. you might seek professional advice on parkmerced. it is high-risk territory in terms of a high-rise. it is next to the san andreas fault. we are talking about a map by have sitting here. that is from the u.s. geographic survey. we are talking about a high- risk areas. >> this is only on the continuance. >> that is why you should continue. >> on behalf of the parkmerced action coalition, we are grateful to have this extension. thank you very much. president miguel: public comment is closed. >> on the motion for continuance of the initiation to january 13, 2011. commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner borden: aye. commissioner fong: aye. commissioner sugaya: aye. commissioner olague: aye. >> thank you, commissioners. item number 22, parkmerced overview and development agreement, informational only. this includes transportation and housing, as well as rent consideration. >> good evening, commissioners. tonight, we have brought before you two informational subjects, which you have requested to here, housing and transportation. it is better to do the housing police first. we will go straight into the housing portion. the commission requested that one of the first informational hearings that in discussing the housing issues, we discussed the background on how the project relates to the general plan and the larger policy issues before the city. we thought it would be good to start with a brief discussion of where the city and this project fit in with the statewide pieces of legislation regarding greenhouse gases and transportation and land use that the city is engaged in responding to. it mandates statewide reduction of greenhouse gases. to implement part of it, the state legislation asked -- pas sed sb375 to mitigate greenhouse gases from passenger vehicles, to reduce them. the point is to shape growth in the future. that growth will occur in san francisco, as it well in the rest of the region. it is our responsibility to shape it where, on a per-capita basis, the miles traveled are more reduced than they would be under an existing status quo development pattern. when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases, transportation is where it is in terms of the bay area. this graph shows where all of the emissions come from. 40% come from passenger transportation. the other sectors are much lower. this directly relates to our housing patterns. no matter where you go across the country and the world, no matter what city you are in, more dense development, housing patterns, directly correlates to reduce the vehicle miles traveled. i will use this chart. the bay area is less than 10 units per acre. the average vehicle's miles per household is about 18,000 per year. this proposes an average density of 59 per acre. it could be a reduction, assuming the statistics told of a reduction of over 10,000 miles per year by each household. multiplying that by the number of units proposed in the plan area. it is a reduction of over 9 million miles per year, driven by folks who live in parkmerced. these folks will love some -- will live somewhere. if they live here, presumably, they would drive that much less and contribute substantially toward the bay area achieving its goal. to move forward from there, commissioner olague asked us to look at the housing and how the policies and housing element relate to this proposal. we combed through the housing element and look to see what the appurtenant policies were. -- what the pertinent policies were. there's a list of different policies. we paraphrased them into groups and discussed how the project relate. first, we provided the citations here. the first is to ensure that all new housing we build has supporting services nearby. we see it as a complete neighborhood effort. we see that in the planning efforts we have done all around the city in the last decade or so. we are proposing to read the supporting services to make this a complete neighborhood. the next group of policies relate to encouraging new housing that make efficient use of existing infrastructure and transportation, particularly public transit. as you have seen, we have talked about transportation. this project is in an area that is already developed. there is a significant amount of planned improvements. moving towards the housing itself, there are explicit policies about the rental units that the encourage the construction of new rental units. there are policies regarding demolition, except where projects that would provide replacement of those units, particularly a net increase in the number of units, and