Unit. So that was almost just as easy as a decision for us. This is not as much of a nobrainer because theres an existing house there. But one thing that pops up in my mind is the proximity to bart and the fact that for planning purposes, we should be densifying near the bart stations. It doesnt have a fourcar garage or anything like that. Its a fourunit building, which is if you think about it, it will make it more affordable than it would be if it stays asis. And proximity to bart is putting me over the fence on this one. It wouldnt be the end of the world if it was continued, but im supporting the project asis. Commissioner richards we talked last night and we talked about the dominos falling and this will be the first of the entire street and then there goes the entire street. And i asked you to provide us with a look at what the street looks like even though ive been there. This would be for the rest of the commissioners. And you said you would. Can you help us out by showing us what the context is . Can you go to the overhead . There was a comment at the last hearing by one of the commissioners that led to the conversation commissioner richards asked if tearing this down would have a domino effect on the street that we would be losing either Historic Housing or rentcontrolled housing or both. And theres a chart showing the other units on the street. By the other units, i mean this. This is the unit in question that were talking about today. This one is the corner and the one next to it and the singlefamily home that were talking about here today. What this chart shows and i have surveys for the planning department, historic surveys, that every building on this block, other than the small one right here, but every other building is rentcondition controlled or historic. Its my belief and your commission has said this over and over, where theres a rentcontrolled building or a building with historic nature to it, it will not be something that the commission will be allowing to be demolished. Commissioner richards you mentioned housing accountability act, i believe. Is it your understanding that rentcontrolled buildings would be allowed to be demolished under housing accountability act if their supplanted with more units . The building question today is not rentcontrolled, but i dont know ive read the housing accountability act. I dont know whether use of it would allow the demolition whether the city would be liable under it for saying we wont demolish if theres a multiunit building. I dont think you are liable if you refuse to demolish a multiunit, rentcontrolled building. That could create a finding that you could make thats not in the health and safety and in the best interests of the public. Thats a finding that i think would work. I dont think findings on turning down this project as proposed are easy to make under the housing accountability act. Commissioner richards my fear is, and i made the motion it approve this, if we went this way and the dominos started to fall and we get to the multiunit and people say, theres no historic and theres no health or safety issues. Like they will get hurt physically, that were not on solid ground still. And that really worries me. [please stand by] for 7,000, a replacing it with what youre just saying is an economic equation, i think were going directly against that policy support. And for that reason, i cannot support the application. Its for that very reason. Vice president richards i understand. Commissioner moore its a game that is skillfully played, and we are sitting here, not quite knowing how to respond to the housing accountablity act, although i believe commissioner hillis gave a very good four or five reasons of why we should not support this billing. Vice president richards you can tell its conflicted internally. Commissioner moore yeah. I hear you, but i also hear of what we call supported with a lot of work and a lot of work from the community to do here. It was a very simple answer and a very simple support to do that. Vice president richards sure. Perhaps we should have recommended a rezoning here, as well. Again, i would support a continuance. I dont think we have a great reason to deny. I think weve got legitimate design concerns about this building that havent been addressed by what he kind of came back to us. We asked to kind of look at the context, and thats the massing, also. Its not just putting on a different facade to this building, and i think in good faith, you should have met with folks in the community to try to figure out what works best. So thats you know, i im not comfortable at all taking action. President hillis Commission Commissioner johnson . Commissioner johnson yeah, and i know this is my last hearing, but i also agree. I dont think the commission has enough information to deny this. I still have not heard what those objective findings would be. I think that if, you know, theres a couple things that actually could happen. If we want to say that demolishing safe structures goes against the health and safety code, that is one thing. But i look at the plan that is presented here, and weve seen similar projects that there have been various attempts. Theres four units in this plan, and weve seen projects with four or five units where developers have greed to give one unit to the voluntary hows Housing Program because its not required for buildings under ten units. Weve seen other sorts of benefits or other ways to sort of make projects conform a little bit more with the community, and i just dont feel like weve had any opportunity for that discussion to have happened. All im hearing is people saying theres been no communication and people havent spoken. I would have even felt better making a decision one way or another hearing if theyd met and screamed at each other for an hour. I think weve been backed into a corner as a commission, and we need to push our way out of this and put this work back on some of the other parties, so i would be supportive of a continuance. One for people to potentially talk to the Supervisors Office for potential changes that she may want to make supervisor ronen may want to make with the planning code to make sure we have approve will for those specific projects in the neighborho neighborhood. And i want the ability for the pr sponsor to have a meeting with the community other than saying i tried. I want there to be evidence that there was actually a meeting and there was discussion and there was no agreement, and i think that at minimum, the commission should request that before getting backed into a corner to make a decision. I also think we should engage with the City Attorney and have a potential closed session on the housing accountablity act . Commissioner moore. Supervisor campos and then supervisor cothen actually participated in the reform of interim controls and helped the Community Come as far as we did. We just need to remind ourselves that they did that. That was a very important step to acknowledge. I was not here on december 12th when when you discussed the project. However, i followed it, and i did not here any objection to the design except for the location, and for facade modification, this particular case, including the changes in demonstration, which makes it a nice building. I could comfortably say in any other location, this would definitely be an approval of the building. However, where it is with the overlay that at the core of this is the demolition of a sound structure, the whole discussion has a completely different meaning, and i do not think that a continuance of this project would create any other result other than the community rightfully presenting the year or 1. 5 or 2 yearlong work with particular emphasis of where this project is. So i personally cannot support a continuance because i dont think it would create anything other than they might scream at each other, and we would be confronted with the same issues that are in front of us right now. So that is my interpretation of where we really are or where we would be with a continuance. President hillis commissioner melgar. Commissioner melgar so theres a motion on the floor, and i believe we could get it over with. I also dont support a continuance, but well see where it goes. If the commission does end up voting for a continuance, i would like to please ask the project sponsor to enter into a conversation with the neighborhood in good faith. Dont say racist things. Show some respect, and then, lets see where it goes. President hillis one, we have a motion, a motion to continue would take precedent if there was a motion to continue. I think we also would be best advised to talk to the City Attorney before approving or denying a project just because housing accountablity has been brought up. Weve approved projects that have demoed buildings single story in rh2 and rh3 that staff has said this was not a historic building, so i think wed want to look at that, also. I dont want to end up in a situation where theres continued conflict on this, which i think we could get at either way commissioner johnson . Commissioner johnson okay. Im going to make a motion to continue to some date in february , and while we look at what date, i would ask that when you go into closed session with the City Attorney, which i hope that will also happen before then, that you specifically ask about demolitions of sou demolitions of sound structures, and if you could make changes to the planning code or the health code, to what changes could you make to be able to make that finding, because i think that thats sort of a key to some things that we want to see around here, and again, this is stuff we cant makeup as we go along. This has been a challenge to our planning code and general plan all along. Its too i go have vague, and chickens are coming home to roost. Commissioner johnson, if you expect the commissioners to actually schedule a closed session prior to reconsidering this matter, i would suggest a date in march, so how about march 22nd . President hillis second. Commissioner richards . Vice president richards three things here. We could have findings, we could change the zoning. The other thing is we could change the housing accountablity act to say you cant demolish Historic Buildings in these types of situations. There is other things you can do to take into account these kind of issues, so there are three things to do, so theres a lot of work to do. President hillis commissioner johnson . Commissioner johnson sorry. Just going to say, first of all, we can change the housing accountablity act . Vice president richards no, i was saying commissioner johnson yes, i know what you mean now. Yes, i think a legislative session for 2018 is probably full up, but i think we can clarify our own codes. Thats something that can happen in the next few months, so theres that. President hillis commissioner moore . Commissioner moore im sorry to say that as a commissioner, i feel like somebodys putting a gun on my head. If theres no clear answer or no clear metrics in the housing accountablity act, how can i just act out of fear for let gas statilet litigation . How can i . If the housing accountablity act is against the basic principles of why were sitting here, deliberating on a very critical issue, then i think we might as well take sometime out of being commissioners because were not doing what were supposed to do. Were kicking the can down the road because by march whatever it is, 22nd, none of those issues are going to be fully vetted. If the City Attorney sitting here cannot give us a clear answer of what that does or does not mean. We have the full account of the housing accountablity act in our packet, and none of it speaks to none of it speaks to using the back up on the mission 2020 plan to basically at least firmly affirm of what we believe in. If we cant do that, i feel basically threatened by a hypothetical litigation, and im not doing my duty. President hillis commissioner johnson . Commissioner johnson i think commissioner moore makes a good point, and i know were belaboring this, but its really important, because it keeps coming back, and we do keep kicking can down the road. The housing accountablity act is completely taking advantage of the fact that our planning code and our general plan are deliberately vague. And we and we and theres not enough guidance for us theres a reason why that whole objective standards term was put in there. It was particularly to try to work around cities like San Francisco that have vague terminology, and im saying i think that theres a way to clarify it so that we can get more of what we want and less of what we dont want, and we should not kick the can down the road and just yell at the state and say, you know, we haste th hate this law. We should clarify our own standards. Ive put a a couple of ideas commissioner richards has put out a couple of codes. I think we need to do that work, and then, we will lighten our load somewhat. President hillis commissioner koppel . I would just remind that the housing accountablity law is to deliberately stop the accountablity of housing. Its for communities, for example, like brisbane who have been holding up housing on their land for years. We dont have the authority or the ability to say it applies to some communities and not others. It is a statewide law, and so i would just remind us of that act. Clerk commissioners, there was a motion with conditions that was superseded by a motion to continue to march 22nd and for the sponsor to work with that community. On that. [ roll call. ] clerk the motion fails, 34 with commissioners koppel, melgar, moor, and richards voting agai voting against. Should i call the motion to approve . [ roll call. ] clerk the motion fails, commissioners, 34, with commissioners fong, melgar, moore, and hillis voting against. I will remind commissioners that if theres no subsequent motion, that this matter will be de facto disapproved by the Planning Commission. Commissioners, kate stacey in the planning department. I will remind you that the housing accountablity act does require specific finding, so if the commission is not going to make specific findings, i would suggest you take a motion to disapproval and give staff some guidance on what information you need for those findings. President hillis commissioner koppel. Is the more preservationist style in here theres two options in our packet, correct . I dont think ones a real option. President hillis commissioner moore. Commissioner moore i will give a strong nod to the sponsor to meet with the commission and have a discussion with the City Attorney what reasonable arguments we could make for the city of San Francisco and this particular neighborhood to indeed create strong arguments of why we deny this project. I think since there is a lot of uncertainty, i do believe a little bit more concise head work at the right time would probably help us to be more articulate with Common Grounds defining criteria. Kate stacey from the City Attorneys office. I think that discussion needs to happen in open session. We can certainly give you legal advice on the risks and consequences of certain kinds of legal analyses in the litigation, but the general spans of what could apply or should apply should happen in open session. There will need to be some discussion about what types of findings and what types of standards would comply with the housing accountablity act and what would the citys position be. Commissioner moore i was never implying that it would be done behind closed doors. I think it would be the benefit of everybody to hear a robust discussion on the subject matter. It is new territory, and again, we could schedule that early in the year and, again, its a big learning curve for all of us, but i think it would very much empower us to be more effective and consistent in how we look at these particular types of cases. President hillis commissioner richards . Vice president richards my take on it, miss stacey, is there would be a motion to disapprove, and wed take a stab or staff working with us would take a stab at the findings so that wed have it in front of us to debate in public. If i may, commissioners, im hearing somewhat two different things. I think what kate stacey was recommending for this particular project, you take a motion of intent, give us time to actually develop right. The second thing that im hearing is a general discussion, but that recommendation at this point would be to give us a motion of intent, give us three weeks, four weeks to develop those findings and to come back with a final vote. Right. President hillis commissioner johnson . Commissioner johnson ill take a stab at it. Make a motion to continue to march 22nd was the original continuance date we had. And for the findings, i know staff will take a stab at it, but ill stick with my original idea. I think seeing no others, that we look for specific Public Health and adverse Public Health and safety impacts of demolition of sound housing. President hillis commissioner moore . Commissioner moore id like to look for consistency with state law that this particular legislation is created to find more equity in what specific communities do in response to director williams interpretation. I think that would be very helpful for us. But on the other hand, im not necessarily supporting making a making a motion of intent to deny because given that the project de facto has been denied by what the outcome of what we just did, why dont we just figure out how we can develop those criteria in order to substantiate our situation today. My concern was even though there wasnt a housing accountablity issue, you dont have a motion in front of you at that time. Commissioner moore im taking the interpretation of secretary ionin the fact that he did not have four votes to support is an automatic denial. When you do that, typically, you take a motion of intent so that we can rewrite the motion for you. Yes. Thats typically what you do when you want to deny. Correct. I dont think were required to do that, commissioner moore. I think in this case, given the discussion of the housing accountablity act, if we wanted to deny the project, it would be in our best interest to go through that effort so that if there is a challenge to this, there are the findings that are reflective of this discussion that can were better articulated. Commissioner moore would the moxy hotel where we had a vote by which there wasnt a Housing Project under the housing accountablity act. Commissioner moore no, but it was the outcome of a type of motion. If the motion doesnt have the required four votes, its automatically denied, and that does not require another motion with intent to deny. President hillis we did a