I would say as a contrasting to the project we just heard, there is public space and retail and other things that sort of integrated into the highly commercial district located in. I would say, i do think i agree, popus has been challenging for us. We have had comment from the public in the past that verifies something that anybody who has been to some of the Larger Hotels can see that they can be hard to find, hard to access. I think a group of youth tried to go to all and some they didnt have access to, some they couldnt find. There are renderings of roof top space in the package regardless. Is that just for hotel guests . Speaking through the chair, commissioner johnson, well build the roof top whether its the popus or not. If the direction is to put it on stevenson, which is where we would prefer rather than the staff recommendation, well still have the same roof deck that you see in the renderings. Thank you. So it sounds like then if we put it on the roof we would just have less open space. I think im supportive of the ground floor. I dont see the issue with the reception area and popus, i dont understand why you need three hotel rooms on the ground floor between publicly accessible open space and retail. I would just say i think the staff recommendation was to do what . To relocate or remove them so the popus could be integrated more with the retail and accessed through both streets. Okay. So i make that motion we approve the project with the condition that the three hotel rooms on the ground floor be removed and the popus between reception and retail. Second. Commissioner moore. I want to ask if it was on the roof, wouldnt it have to be a designated order to protect access to hotel rooms. Question two, the protected area of the hotel is mostly between the reception area and the elevator, if the popus is right across from the elevator, im concerned theres not enough protection that unauthorized people do not go up in the Hotel Elevators to rooms they havent rented. 3, the rest rooms youre proposing at this moment from three hotel rooms dont have the typical privacy pockets you see in commercial establishments by which you step into an anti room before turning into the washroom itself. This particular case, the door to the toilet is center line with the access to hotel room. I think thats an unfortunate solution and i dont think its appropriate for a public facility like a hotel or lobby which has potential to be open users using the hotel rest room as well. There are a number of questions. I also observe that the hotel room dimension and i think were speaking here to the same architect of mr. Stanton as the columbus street hotel, they were 11 foot 3 in cross dimension. The hotel rooms here in this particular project are proposed at 10 foot 9, 10 foot 10. It is smaller than what we see on columbus. I question that those are properly dimensioned tourist rooms and potentially concerned they could be hotel rooms for longer stay tech workers. Im concerned theyre like a surrogate residential type facility. I dont have any problems with the hotel in the location. I have some problems with the design and layout including the absolutely minimally sized seven or eight story light well that brings hardly any light to the bottom floors on floor one when you look at sheet a102 at room number 12. Looking against the wall is about three feet and that seems to be not enough for having well enough appointed hotel room. I have some issues with the design, not with the location. Would you like to comment mr. Stanton . Speaking through the chair, that was a bit of a compound statement, im going to divide it a bit. Commissioner moore, whats normally done when the popus is located on a roof, is that the user of the popus is directed at the front desk and he or she gets the key to access the elevator to go up. The control point when its on the roof like at 942 Mission Street, the 17 story hampton inn mr. Singh has is at the elevator. You commented on the bedroom sizes can you talk a little louder . Sorry. You asked about guest room sizes, the general trend is more toward smaller guest rooms. People spend less time in their rooms. This is not a full service hotel. Its one of the few types of hotels we havent built many of in San Francisco opposed to the w which is full service hotel. With the advent of the flat screen television, guest rooms have shrunk a foot in width. They have gone off like the elephant graveyard, somewhere to die. This is very normal and meets most operators standards, particularly in a city like San Francisco where they recognize the high cost of land and high rates you can get will have the brands accept a smaller guest room. These will be fine for a number of chains just as of the slightly undersized ones worked out for hilton and hampton in. The bathrooms across from the guest rooms on the first floor. Point well taken, these are schematic plans and well work it out so one is not exposed to the traffic there. The light well comment, the rooms at the end where the light is narrowest, its what they call in the Hotel Business as last rent, theyll be rented last. The sponsor has said well go however you want to handle the popus. I would like to make the observation though, simply enlarging this in the middle of the building, which is what removing the three guests room does, puts Additional Space where theres eight floors of hotel above it, no visual access to it from the street, so its not necessarily more attractive. My preference personally would be to keep the guest rooms, valuable to the developer and to the city and put the popus off stevenson as an entree point. That said, well be happy to proceed in the direction the Commission Wants and commissioner moore i hope that helped. I still have a question. I would like to not see this be ground floor rooms but rather reconfigure the retail and give the hotel a more gracious entrance for Market Street. That particular block and since it has the Market Street address, it needs strong support of a positive architectural. We have a well designed Shopping Center that is basically empty a block away. I would rather see the retail at that portion reconfigured and like to see the popus in a more gracious way, see the entrance from Market Street be a more convincing noticeable presence on Market Street. If thats the direction the commission decides, well move it in the direction you recommend. Commissioner johnson. I was just going to say, sir you can sit but you made my point when you answered commissioner moores question about how do you access it if its on the roof. Going to the elevator where theres not a lot of access is not that public. I think i stand with the motion we have and i would second that if the three hotel rooms are eliminated, take any and all means to reconfigure the space. You could make the retail more through so theres more sight line to the popus, you could expand the bathroom facilities since its not just shared with the hotel staff and popus and also the people in the retail. Its not the best use of space. Theres a motion seconded to approve this matter with conditions as amended to include staffs recommended amendments, removal of the three hotel rooms expansion of the popus. Get a more positive address for the hotel on Market Street as commissioner johnson just said, find a way there is potentially a visual connection between retail and popus and work on the rest rooms to be basically more public facility feature with pockets at which you dont look straight into the rest rooms. Commissioner fong. Is that accepted by the maker and seconder . I wasnt that specific. I just wanted to remove the three hotel rooms. So so remove the ground floor hotel rooms and reconfigure reconfigure the popus. I was okay with her renditions. I think they would add to the project if you would reconsider. I dont understand all of the changes. I think the motion, the condition that staff added to the motion covers sufficiently and well work with the project sponsor to make sure the direction that commissioner moore provided is followed. Okay. Great. So then the motion is to approve the matter with conditions with the recommended amendment, removal of the ground floor hotel rooms and reconfiguring the popus. Is that correct . Aye. Aye. Aye. Commissioner moore. Aye. Commissioner chair richards. Aye. It passes anonymously 60. That puts us on item 21a. This is conditional use authorization. Good afternoon commissioners. I need to ask to recuse myself as i live too close to the building in question. Motion to recuse commissioner moore. Second. Thank you commissioners on that motion. Commissioner fong. A. Melgar. Aye. Chair richards. Aye. So moved. The item before you is the conditional use authorization in the 19 unit residential building at 1750 Taylor Street between green. It would merge a two bedroom two bath unit with a two and a half bath unit. The stairway between the units to create one four bedroom that occupies the ninth, half of the tenth and the penthouse. A point of clarification, the staff report states the rental unit is vacant but it is occupied by the owner. In addition to the conditional use, the commission has to consider other criteria. It would not eliminate housing considered affordable, it would remove a unit subject to the residential rent stablezation and go against the mayors executive directive that all housing, especially rental housing should be preserved. The merging of the two units, considered separately would not be in the best interest of the community. The department has received one correspondence in support and two in opposition. After analyzing all aspects, the Department Recommends disapproval, it will result in a net loss of rental Housing Stock and merge two units that are affordable and result in one merged unit that is not affordable to a large part of the population. Its not needed for housing for families, they are sized for families already. The residential merger removes a Residential Housing from the stock. The sponsor has a presentation and im available for questions after that. Thank you. Project sponsor. Conditional use permit as of 10 minutes, i would appreciate it, if no one else it will be a short hearing. Thank you. Good. I want to introduce brandy from my office, thank you for being here. First im Rick Gladstone representing the bentlys, hope lives with them in the top two floors, chris has owned this high end building for about 12 years. Chris married camille his current wife in 2014 and at that time, camilles daughter hope became part of the family and at that point, the two bedroom top floor unit became too small for the family. Why do they want to vertically merge the 9th floor unit they occupy into the larger two story that lies above, why cant they leave in all three floors like they currently do. Each of the two units being bedrooms. They want extra bedrooms for visitor family and or a home office. Living in two units happens to be awkward. They go out to a common area hall to take common stairs or elevator leaving the ninth floor unit to get to the tenth floor unit and that is a privacy issue they would like to eliminate and theyre dropping down a circular stair from the bottom level of the upper unit to the level of the lower unit, half a story now. Why not move to a building somewhere elsewhere there is a four bedroom unit, common question. First of all, theres a lot of sentimental value in the building. Chris bently has lived there 12 years. Its very historic, he has upgraded to former historic features and put in a lot of system renovations. He wants to continue to oversee the maintenance. They spent a good deal on restoration and improving it environmentally. They do the same by the way with all their buildings. You may see the bently reserve, they brought it up to standards as do all their buildings and put a lot of care into them. The other reason they want to stay and not move, they have a 10 minute walk down the hill, theyre in knob hill. And weve been asked why dont they take the upper level of the upper two level unit and simply renovate it to create two new bedrooms there instead of moving into the ninth floor unit they occupy right below. We have to look at the drawing. Would you bring the drawing . Thank you. Here in the drawing you see the upper level and by the way, this outline is the nine floors below, this is the top floor and the top of the two level unit. This is an elevator room with gears and pulleys for the entire building. This is common area stairs for everyone in the building and its a fire exit to the roof, cant be messed with. This is the only space on the upper level and theres already a circular staircase. These two small areas are not big enough for a bedroom and they have no windows currently. All of this was mechanical space and putting windows in this facade is not appropriate for the historic building. It would be hard to create windows for the first time there in the structural walls. So just to move on, i understand you commissioners and youre rightly concerned if clients like mine will continue to occupy this or just flip it as others have. I know a family did that many months ago and it was sort of embarrassing to all of us. After the media reported that they sold the unit after representing they were going to live there. This is a little different than that situation. This unit cannot be sold separately from the building after a merger. The building is not a stock coop. Its not a tenancy in common and they dont wish to create that, meaning they would share control with a lot of other people and they put too much time and effort and care into this building to want to give up control and not see it continue as a legacy for their family. He specializes in Historic Buildings and renovations as you can see. This is just one of his gems, one of his gems. Now, the bentlys have set up a 40 million Charitable Foundation and have been lead donors to many nonprofits, including environmental and Arts Foundation groups and this is just being fed to make clear theyre longterm players in the city, i hope you dont get the impression because of the foundation and money that you treat well off People Better than others, i just mention it to avoid the impression that this family will be like others who just do it to make a buck and flip a unit after a merger. To make even clearer their sincerity, we have proposed three conditions of approval and will appear in a recorded notice of special restriction, any future owner will see it before they buy. One, the restoration of the two units must occur if the bentlys no longer occupy the units. Two, that will be reported. There will be a yearly affidavit given to the Code Enforcement people at Planning Department i will personally prepare. And that will state they continue to reside in the building. Third, they will only open the ceiling and only put in a circular stair and the only thing theyre going to change in the kitchen area is remove an oven and cabinet, they can be easily restored. So the affidavit will come yearly. This is not the first time, i know staff is not wild about the idea of yearly affidavits, they have to log them in and enforce them, but as Zoning Administrator and mr. Ram knows, i file yearly for other clients that your commission has approved. One is a famous landmark building where the client resided and opened a gallery and only allowed four showings a year and has to make affidavits as to the showings every year. And finally a conditional of approval states there will be no more merged units in the building. The city gains something there. Future owners wont be able to do it. It will be recorded and thus this decision for this building wont be a precedent for this building and i think thats very beneficial. I dont think it will open a flood gate of requests for wealthy people to want to merge their units. I doubt many people can live with the kind of restrictions were recording here. If they can, why not, they are simply not if theyre living with that, property flippers. Those would be difficult to meet. By the way, the unit being rented the unit that used to be rented and they lived in was rented at 65 years ago, now at 7500. I dont know why the planning says it would be unaffordable to the larger part of the population than the two individual units considered separately. This would not be in the best interest of the community. With all due respect to staff, they go on to say that the merger of the units would be would not be beneficial to economic diversification. At this level of affordability, i dont know if were talking about economics at 7500 for a rental. Were not here to protect a community of wealthy people and i dont understand the staff basis for denial being theres a community here that will be affected that is people who rent for more than 7500. Please consider few people want to rent 7500 a two bedroom with no parking and no common area and with all due respect, we shouldnt be so concerned about the people who may not be able to rent a 7500 or more unit because its been merged and your Housing Inventory report says only 6. 6 of the citys units are four bedroom. We dont have that many. That means this couple wont go out and buy an existing family size one, which means a four bedroom somewhere will continue to be for someone else. I really appreciate your consideration and happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We may have some. Lets open up for Public Comment first. Any Public Comment . Seeing none, closing Public Comment. Commissioners. Thank you mr. Gladstone, you win the award for the most time a person said wealthy in a single presentation. We have seen these before, generally speaking, i try not to look at the personal stories of the people unless maybe theres something supextraordinary, onct goes through, they own the units, they can sell them, they can do whatever they want. I try hard not to Pay Attention to that. In terms of land use issue, theyre two units being brought together. We talk all the time about how theres multi bedroom two and above properties