Golden Gate National recreation area, and im here on behalf of our superintendent whos vacation this week. I want to acknowledge my colleagues both from the National Parks service as well as our partners with the port and the parks conserveancy who are behind the project here. We appreciate the Planning Departments very thoughtful plans to this project. The National Parks service supports keeping the National Park service em brkation port where it is and weve worked several years closely with the port faf to make this a reality. To and from alcatraz island, pier 31 1 2, we heard earlier discussion about experiences and that is certainly one of the highlights here. Its unfortunate that we do have this disagreement with the city of sausalito, who is a longstanding partner to the park, who weve worked with for many, many years, and this is around this proposal to send two boats from pier 31 1 2 to frisk in the future. The goal for the limited fort Baker Service is to provide an alternative transit option that would allow some visitors to avoid driving to fort baker. Our plans and our contract documents would limit the fort baker ferries to Weekend Service as i mentioned and carrie no more than 40,000 visitors over the entire year. The National Parks service did complete an Environmental Impact statement under the National Environmental policy act that analyzed limited Ferry Service to fort baker. The project considered significant input from sausalito. As part of that process, we also completed studies about endanger endang endangered species [ inaudible ] although limited Ferry Service to fort baker is analyzed also in the ceqa document and the Park ServicesEnvironmental Impact statement, the park service does not have fund being to initiate the necessary updates to the fort baker pier and does not anticipate having the funds to make these upgrades for several years. In other words this service would be in the future. San Francisco City planning completed a very careful reevaluation of impacts as part of the ceqa process. The summary that was just presented, and came to the same conclusion, that the project will not have any significant impacts. Based on this conclusion, we ask that the commission approve the negative determination. As you take that action, we would want you to know that the park service is committed to continuing to work with the city of sausalito to find common ground, and ideally economic rate that through a separate agreement, such as a memorandum of understanding that would really speak to our longterm cooperation and go that route, rather than through adding new mitigation measures or otherwise involving the city of San Francisco and further ceqa planning and analysis. We plan to okay. Thank you very much. Well open this item up for Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment . Good evening, commissioners. Ill be brief. Its been a long day for all of you. Im greg moor, ceo of the National Parks conserveancy. Ill begin by saying alcatraz is a pretty cool place. There been 1. 6 Million People that go there, and there would be more if they could fit them on the island. Trip advisor ranked alcatraz as the number one visitor landmark in america just recently. The added benefits of this project of course is alcatraz is essential to the travel and Tourism Industry of San Francisco, and alcatraz is a Good Community partner with the Community Access program that provides affordable visits for thousands of school kids and Community Members each year. Alcatraz deserves a firstclass gateway as a National Park and a National Historic landmark, and very simply, that is what this project does. We encourage you to give a positive review to this significant project, a project that improves the citys waterfront, that serves millions of visitors each year to our city and provides economic benefits to the city of San Francisco. Thank you very much for your time in considering this. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional Public Comment in considering this item . Welcome. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is vickie nichols. Im a 35 year plus sausalito resident. I wasnt going to speak, but since proponents spoke, i thought id need to speak myself. I agree with the citys evaluation of this. I think that and i have Great Respect for the park service. I sat on numerous boards. We work with them all the time. I think youre hearing that they dont have the funds to do this project right away, so i dont see what it would be delaying to get the information you need. I initially read all the documents from the first go around, the first letter, and there were some discrepancies. I would urge you to considerate least a continuation. I dont see how its going to hurt. Theres not a project thats directly pending in front of you. Youve heard from the park service. They dont have the money to do this at the moment, any way, so a little more time to get this straight, i think, would be to everyones benefit. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, well close Public Comment and open it up to commissioners. Commissioner moore . For clarification, i believe what is in front of us is really the alcatraz ferry embarkation project on the embarcadero in San Francisco. The aspect of the fort baker ferry is subset to potential other operational aspects of Ferry Service expanding into fort baker at a frequency which i believe is properly described, but it is not really the major thrust of what is in front of us. It has undergone through a large amount of work by planning staff, including the preparation of the draft mitigated negative declaration, and i am personally not concerned that any of the information that the city of sausalito, with due respect, feel thats missing, could not be picked up with a memorandum of understanding because i do believe that the park service very clearly describes what they intend regarding fort baker and operation they are concerned. Fort baker is quite a ways away from sausalito. The corridor which connects the Golden Gate Bridge by way of fort baker to sausalito is an already difficult corridor just to start with, but i do not believe that two ferries two ferry rides could really significantly tip the scale of what may need to be controlled by a completely different set of other circumstances not to be discussed by us today because theres no solutions or any proposals in front of us. I am comfortable with whats in front of me. I just believe in the spirit of many of the eirs that this department does, it touches accurately and consistently on those points that we normally examine. I do not see any deviation on its thoroughness, and i am prepared to make a motion to uphold the preliminary mitigated negative declaration, so that is a to the Lease Agreement or the document, but that would be a future evaluation at that time. But the city would evaluate whether that would require additional ceqa analysis based on the new scope, if they decided to expand beyond whats being studied here. Thats correct. If theres a discretionary ceqa decision, they would have to contemplate additional ceqa review. Thank you, and we often have this case where were not the approving body of the transaction necessarily, but were were looking at the impact from a ceqa standpoint, and i think were comfortable i agree with commissioner moore, that thats been analyzed here, to the extent that goes beyond or the project goes beyond at a later date, wed have to do exactly what we do in other cases. Im sure the city of sausalito is faced with this at times, they adopt a new plan that entails additional ceqa analysis, but the projects arent necessarily before them at that time. So im comfortable with this, i agree with commissioner moore, and id support the motion. Commissioner richards. So im taking a more neighborly approach. I think on a 50 year contract, asking for 30 more days is not a huge burden. It looks like they want to cooperate with us on whatever they want to cooperate much im not commenting on the thoroughness of the document, but to save us all the pain and heartache later on, 30 more days seems neighborly and reasonable to me rather than this go and become a bigger issue later in the future. Commissioner fong . Im going to support the motion and have great confidence in our environmental division. As we see many of these ceqa documents come before us. Ill try not to speak to the project, but i think this is a much needed regional solution to our transit problem in the bay area, and from an Emergency Preparedness situation, its a no brainer. I understand the concerns that use aleet ohaus, and i do hope youre able to work out some operational details with them, and wed highly encourage that. We have to bifurcate and sausalito, you may have legitimate issues and wants to talk to the park service about it, but i think it goes beyond our scope in looking at this in the context of ceqa. Commissioners, if theres nothing further, there is a motion thats been seconded to uphold the preliminary mitigated declaration. Shall i call that question . Yes. On that motion to uphold the preliminary mitigated declaration. [ roll call. ] so moved, commissioners. That motion passes 51, with commissioner richards voting against. All right. The commissions going to take a tenminute break. Okay. Mics are on. [ inaudible ]. [ gavel ]. Okay. Good afternoon, and welcome back to the San FranciscoPlanning Commission regular hearing for thursday, february 22nd, 2018. I will remind members of the public to please silence your mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. Commissioners, we left off on your regular calendar on item 19 for case number 2017014841 cua 655 alvarado street. This is a conditional use authorization. Good afternoon, president hillis, members of the commission. Jeff horn, Planning Commission staff, presenting case 201714841 cua at 655 alvarado street. Item before you is a request for conditional use authorization of a 2,737 gross square foot two story over basement singlefamily home, and to permit an expanded 5,096 gross square foot three story over two basement level singlefamily home within a residential house two family Zoning District and 40x height and bulk district. The project requires conditional use authorization because it has removed vertical and horizontal elements of the structure in an amount that exceeds the thresholds allowed in section 317 of the planning code. The propertys located on the south side of alvarado street midblock between diamond and castro streets in the noe valley neighborhood. The lot is 114 feet in depth and is courage developed with an almost completely demolished singlefamily two story home, originally built in 1925. Large amounts of excavation have occurred, and at the site new foundations and retaining walls at the propose the site have been constructed pera showing permit from dbi. This project has a bit of a background. In december 2009, the project sponsor submitted a Building Permit application to construct a two story horizontal addition and one story rear addition. The project was publicly noticed in december 2010, and 234 january 2011, the neighbor at 651 alvarado street filed a discretionary review of the planning permit. The Planning Commission helped a hearing in september 2011, and did not issue the dr. In 2015, the project sponsor contacted the Planning Department to resume processing of the Building Permit application. Due to the three year gap in time since the Planning Commissions decision, the Zoning Administrator determined that the project would need to redo public notification. The revised project was publicly noticed, approved by planning, and the building was approved by the Planning Department in january of 2017. In march of 2017, the project was issued an over the counter Building Permit to increase the floor of the basement by 200 feet through excavation. In august of 2017, after construction of the project began, a violation was issued by dbi stating that construction and excavation work it undermined the adjacent buildings foundation at 651 alvarado street. This fall, it was determined by planning that the total amount of Building Elements removed on the existing structure it exceeded the totals described and permitted in the projects approved plans and permits and exceeded the thresholds allowed. Therefore, violations were issued by dbi and planning for work being done beyond the scope of permit, and all permits were suspended. [ please standby for captioner switch ] it would meet the demolition subsection of section 317, which asks whether or not the replacement project would match the dependency bity of the subject lot. Two units would need to be designed in a manner that both meets all applicable requirements. With that said the Department Finds that the project with modifications to be necessary, desirable and compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods for the following reasons. The project would increase the number of units from one to two and maximize the underlying zoning and the scale is in keeping with the neighborhood pattern. No tenants would be displaced as a result of the project and although it is structure is more than 50 years old a valuation determined that the existing building was not an historic resource. Im happy to answer any questions. Project sponsor. Good evening, commissioner, i am here to walk you guys through the project as revised per staff comments and weve revised the project to contain two units. And id just like to take a quick moment to talk about my introduction to the project. You know, we were brought in by marcy and clayser and john caplin who lived on the project since 2002. When i first visited them in their home they, you know, they greeted me and their dog, zoe, greeted me as well. So they have wanted to have a project to better suit their lifestyle on this site for a long time. And as you know and the staff mentioned, planning staff mentioned, its been a really long process. So, you know, john caplin, the c. E. O. Of one of the second largest nonprofits in San Francisco and marcy glazer with the j. C. C. And theyre trying to represent the community, they want to live here. They have been trying to make this home more suitable for them for a long time. That said we have modified the project based on the staffs request so if we could flip to the laptop youd walk you through it. There you go. Were going to just start on the basement level and move up. So this is the basement level. It forms the main living space for the lower unit that weve created. It has a dining area, living area, study, and the kitchen. And that was the basement level so this is the first level that has two bedrooms. The level that has the master bedroom level as well as the garage. And the third level or main entry level, you can see that it has a common entry area that serve ised bserved by the front. Theres a door that leads to the lower unit and a door that leads to the upper unit. And the upper unit has the kitchen and combined living dining space and an outdoor space on this level as well as a master bedroom area with bath and deck on the upper most level. And unless you have any other questions this concludes my description of the project as modified per staff comments. Okay, we may have questions, but lets take Public Comment first. Sorry. Sorry. I thought that you were done. Hi, commissioners, im judith thompson, im the general contractor on this project. Is that better . Im not used to public speaking so ill just read my notes that i have prepared. I have been a contractor in the city for 30 years. I have never had a violation. Were not developers, we are not flippers, our clients are not developers. We are not trying to pull the wool over your eyes or break any rules. We were following the approved plans and the code that addresses what to do if if during demo that you encounter rotted or burned walls. On our project there were two blind walls on each side of the property and they were shown on the plans to remain intact. These two Property Line walls cannot be seen by any neighbors as theyre six inches away from the neighbors walls. We were able to see the conditions of the walls and we found dry rot and we only saw this after the interior demo phase. We removed the damaged portions of the walls with the intention of replacing them in kind per code. Code section 317, paragraph 9, says where the exterior elements of a building are removed and replaced for repair or maintenance in like materials with no increase in the extent of the element or volume of the building, such replacement shall not be considered removal for the purposes of this section. So ive encountered many, many in my years in construction, instances of dry rot, which we generally replace in kin