Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20180120

A repair station and additional 12 class 2 spaces near the pedestrian entrances as approved by sfmta. The project is with two zoning districts. The project seeks conditional use authorization for a development of a large lot, over 10,000 square feet, per planning code 121. 1. And merger of a lot greater than 5,000 square feet in the rto district 121. 7. These are the entitlements before you. The existing structure at 1965 market is historic. In 1924, it was built as a mortuary and funery chapel. A third floor was added in 1933. The building is eligible for the National Register with commercial development and north neighborhood for its distinctive Spanish Colonial Mission Revival architecture and the savings and loan established. The project would retain the 1965 historic facade and retain the uses for interpretive display to be permanently installed in the retail space. The project sponsor has elected to utilize the state and city bonus as implemented by planning code 206. 6. In accordance with the departments policies, theres been a 96unit project. Because the sponsor is providing 14 Units Available to lowincome households, the project is eligible for one concession they seek the concession to allow development above the 50foot height in that area within the district to permit three additional residential floors. This project seeks the accommodation to allow the density and prevent the project from impacting the Historic Resource. If they cannot do this, it would preclude 36 units on the site and reduce the units that could be constructed from 96 to 60. And also reduce the number of inclusionary units to about 8. 7, you using the 14. 5 requirement. The user has asked about height as the concession and thats attached. On november 16, the Planning Department issued a Community Plan and exemption and it was found to be consistent with the e. I. R. The department has received five letters of support and three letters opposing the project. Those have been passed forward and are included in the packets. Letters of support from district 6 Community Planners, merchant of upper market, San Francisco Housing Coalition and upper Market Community benefit district. Those in favor are supportive due to the housing proposed, especially considering its proximity to jobs and transit. Those in opposition to the project state that the construction will cause environmental harm. Staff did receive a phone call today from some of the clinton park neighborhood and they had concerns in regard to the massing at the back of the project. And they were concerned about outreach from the project team. The Department Recommends approval with conditions for the following reasons the project complies with the applicable requirements of the planning code and is consistent with the general plan and octavia plan, especially for highdensity housing in the neighborhood. The project is an appropriate project that replaces a surface parking lot and adds 96 dwelling unit including Affordable Housing units. The project is consistent with the california state density bonus law. The project will not result in the loss of the ability of the Historic Property to convey historic appearance and design consistent with the Historic Preservation commission and preservation staff. Comments and respect the appropriate character with appropriate massing and scale. Im available for questions. I have carly from our housing Implementation Team to address any density questions you may have. President hillis thank you. Project sponsor . Welcome. Thank you, president hillis. I want to introduce the team. And heres who we are. Im prowler inc. We have jeff keller and eric grover, who are the law firm that own and occupy the building and the developers, david baker, represented by will bloomer. We also have had on our team charles chase from Architectural Resources group. Its unusual in that its local. Most of the team members live or work within easy walking distance of the project. I live a few blocks away and will does, our land use lawyer does. And jeff and eric work in the building every day. Its across from the giaenant giant safeway on duboce. Its the gateway to upper market. We understand that its a very important site. And we take the responsibility of developing this site very seriously. The area is characterized by a mix of uses and scales. You see onestory buildings, ourstory buildings, eightstory buildings. Theres the whole foods, the mint on the bottom. On the left, eightstory buildings and even in the upper righthand side, theres a 1920s building thats eight stories. Its a mix of scales. And the site is zoned for 85 feet. Its a 1924 category a historic building, formerly a funeral home. Its interesting in that it started as a funeral room and then it was turned to office and retail and now turned into housing and retail. Its a Third Generation of adaptive reuse of this building. Jeff and eric bought the building to house their law offices. They invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in upgrades to the building. We never thought about proposing to demolish the building. We like the building very much. And we brought on charles chase to help advise us and worked closely with the hpc staff and your staff to try to come up with a design that best preserves and respects the existing building, and i think weve succeeded at that. So we identified significant historic aspects of the building and were preserving those. Heres what it looks like today. The site is the existing building in the middle and that parking lot next door on the left. It doesnt include the pet food store on the right. We wanted to not just preserve the existing building, but respect it. Can i have the next slide . Oh, heres the program. Its 96 new homes. 14 are 2bedrooms. All of them on site. Its our intent that it would be an ownership project. Retail space, currently fed ex, we hope to bring back, but retail space will remain the same size as it is now. Half a parking space per unit. And you cannot beat this location for transit access. Next slide, please. At the recommendation of we are set back 35 feet. At the edge, 35 feet of building and 35 feet of footprint. So we set way back and the other move that we did to maintain a feasible project, again, at johns suggestion, was reusing the state density bonus to move some of the mess to the parking lot site. So two big moves, lowering it and moving some of the mass on to the next floor. We designed it to read as three separate buildings. Weve been out talking to people for a long time. Heres some of the things that we heard from your staff, from hpc and the neighbors and the Neighborhood Groups. People really felt strongly and we agreed that it should be a background building. Theres a lot going on on that ground floor and we didnt want to compete with it. So we wanted something reserved, above it. Were using traditional residential materials on all the surfaces, stucco, thin brick, and so we tried to not compete or distract from the existing building. We also heard that people wanted active ground floor. This is important to us as well. You can see along duboce, those will be stoops. I will show you what those residential entries look like in a moment. On the right, you can see the existing retail entrance. Next slide, please. And this is the character along duboce. The other thing is, people didnt want blank walls. This is what it will look like across Market Street from safeway. We tried to make it an attractive facade on that side. We heard a lot from your staff, from the neighbors. We had 18 Community Meetings and we think that that input has really improved the proposal and were very thankful for that input. This is the preapplication meeting. We invited all the neighbors within 300 feet to come and see the proposal. It was very wellattended. Heres a list of neighborhood meetings. Doesnt mention Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association that they voted last night to endorse the project. Every Neighborhood Group to whom we presented the project when their boards of directors had a chance to consider it, endorsed it unanimously. So Eureka Valley, the ccbd, the merchants, and the Housing Coalition. Were very proud of the project, grateful for the input weve got. Were very proud of the support that weve received from your staff and from the neighbors and wed like your support as well. Im available to answer questions. Will is available. The owners. At your service. President hillis thank you. Lets first open this up to Public Comment. And then we may have questions for you. I have one speaker card, robert luddin. If others would like to speak, please come forward after mr. Luddin. I have some handouts that will explain what im about to talk about. If i have enough. Thank you. Hello. Im here to urge the commission not to approve the application as currently designed. Its not intended to stop the project but to tweak the project in a way that respect the guerrero street fire line Historic District. In the packet in front of you, you will see Additional Information which was in my opinion missing from the application in the sense that no information to the east of the project down duboce was represented with the project. So we have the scale issue of an 85foot building next to the Historic District with a 40foot height limitation. So that increased height is a significant issue. So the two issues is that it will impact the guerrero street Historic District and the project does not meet the intent of the stepdown zoning from Market Street to transition from the height of Market Street down to the neighborhoods to the east. The proposed added three floors, i respect that they will bring on housing and its a great idea. I think theres a mass in configuration that would be more gracious to the neighborhood to the east that should be considered as they move forward with the project. The shifting of the story from market to duboce, indicates that the duboce street elevation is like the Market Street elevation. Its not. Duboce is not market. Duboce is residential. The second half of the street to the east is very low. And the projects height right there, creates a sheer wall against that, is detrimental to the neighborhood. In the packet on page 89, there as plan that shows the views of the project, which are contained in the packet presented by the applicant. What is interesting about that is those views are all none of them show east down duboce and i think thats significant, that i included in the diagram to show you how it might be impacted. So in summary, the i heard a beep. Have to think of my summary here. I would urge the commission to avoid the potential for creating a precedent by approving the taller building in such a sheer wall against the neighborhood. And that the applicant should be asked to modify the design to step down to the neighborhood with the same elegant respect they showed the existing historic structure theyve shown to 1965 Market Street. Thank you. President hillis thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, members of the commission. Im an engineer from one design and my client im representing my client who owns 1975 Market Street, the adjacent property, the pet store next door. There are two main concerns that my client has. The first concern is the setback. The 35foot setback, and how that figure was arrived at. Given that my client owns the corner property, its a grate way property and were concerned that development here could be detrimental to the future development my client has and having to match adjacent s setbacks in adjacent buildings. And any view lines could be interrupted by the potential building at 1975, that the potential impact on the view lines could not be detrimental to the development of 1975 market given its stature at the corner as a gateway to market and delores. Other issues we have as well, theres very little detail about the basement shown on the draft documents and we understand its still very early in the process, and still a lot of work that needs to be done, but theres talks about the basement excavating adjacent to my clients property. There will be excavation into the water table, so were concerned about dewatering the site. And were concerned that any dewatering could have a negative impact on my clients property. Were also concerned as well about the serpentine bedrock, naturally occurring asbestos that will be released into the air as part of the excavation. So we wanted to voice our concerns and make sure that the project sponsors is fully forthcoming in working with my client in presenting the plans. It seems theres a lot of inconsistencies. The elevations shows a well facing the west and the plans dont show that and the specific regard to the setback for the above the second floor. Thats the issues that we have at the moment and open to continuing dialogue with the project sponsor. President hillis thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, corey smith, San Francisco Housing Coalition, here in support today. Its a significant corner. Its a couple of blocks from our offices and i use that fed ex all the time. Im familiar with it and really an upgrade in terms of use of land. Were taking a parking lot and office and building housing on it. Benefits of good architects, we were impressed at the way to work in historical aspects into a new, modern project and even spoken earlier, were at the Third Generation of adaptive reuse, which is fascinating to watch. A couple of things that have changed. Were aware that there is more bike parking now than was previously proposed and the opportunity along Market Street where we can have more bike parking and less car parking. And hoa fees, which weve talked about. Its a big deal. Its a challenge. We were very frustrated by the legislation from last years june prop c that put the fees outside of the feasible range. It sounds like it will be coming back. And anything that we can do to be pushing on the state level in order to figure out a way so we can actually have condo projects have bmrs on site without hampering those residents is critical and wed love to work on that. Were in support. Please move it forward. President hillis thank you, mr. Smith. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, commissioners. First of all, i would like to adopt what the first speaker said. Duboce street is basically residential. Going down to guerrero, its residential. An 8story building on the corner, does not keep up with what the neighborhood has in terms of residence. That brings me to the point that both commissioners moore and richards, mentioned, you are not in favor of parking places. And i understand that the city has a lot of density problems, traffic problems, but i think its unrealistic to think that they will take away a major parking lot, three of them, that contain a total of, i think its, 9,000 square feet, and all theyre going to do is put on top of that residences, 96 units, and add no more add additional Parking Spaces and put in bicycle things. And i understand that people are using bicycles. And i understand its a transitrich area, to use your statement, but nonetheless, my being there by experience shows that parking is becoming extremely limited for the people who are residents in that area. And if you added additional units, you will not have Parking Spaces sufficient to service everybody. What do you do if somebody in the unit decides to get a residential parking permit. What reasonable limitations exist to prevent people who obtain those units from having multiple cars . I find the theory is great, but im not sure that the practice is 100 . And so i really i really think there has to be a little bit of review of the parking situation as well as the height limitation that is being proposed for this neighborhood. Thank you very much. President hillis thank you. Any additional Public Comment on this item . Seeing none, well close Public Comment and open it up to commissioner comments and questions. Commissioner melgar . Commissioner melger first of all, i want to comment the project sponsor. I understand it was the directors idea for a very creative use of the state density bonus law and im pleased that we are getting the 14. 5 inclusionary units. Thats a great goal. My question is about the demolition of the existing portion of the building. Is that occupied right now . Are there tenants residentially in that portion of the building . Is it all offices . Theres a fed exkinkos. Above our offices, primarily the offices of the project sponsor. Commissioner melger on the back, theres three stories . All office soffices . Yes. Commissioner melger so theres a threestory portion that will be demolished. Is it okay if i ask the architect . Let me quickly bring us to the plan as well. If i can get that up. And you can see so weve designated the existing walls in red. As you mentioned, the pieces in back, there would be a small portion the one bedroom that you were mentioning sorry. You have to talk into the mike so we can record it. There is an existing portion of that building that would i would need to get the other plan, but theres a small portion of that threestory piece that would be retained. Commissioner melger okay. Thank you. President hillis commissioner moore . Commissioner moore i have a question. Could you speak about th