The most troubling. Thats where im having the biggest trouble and thats the project and preservation alternative. Well be up against a lot of projects on south market. We have the opportunity to figure out how to design vertical additions over Historic Buildings and how our city thinks these should be what the glanc guidance provided to o that. I dont think the guideline guis design but conceptual framework. Thats what our policy on retained elements is trying to address and these are ones we can learn from and test different approaches. Commissioner so . I actually agree with all of my fellow commissioners have put forward, their point. Commissioner perlman mentioned the partial preservation part and wear looking at what is required for this commission. But then Commission High listen had a good point about i do agree when were looking at characterdefining feature, it the embodiment of the contextual responsiveness to the neighborhood and culture and community. So with the gentrification, it is important to understand the design. Im looking at the project versus the project preservation, how we interpret the characterdefining feature that presented to us for the base of the building and how do you translate it to the totally different language on the top . Versus were presenting today with this partial preservation, the approach is more of a conventional take on adding anything to a threestory brick warehouse. So i dont have suggestions here today. But i found that we dont have a good solution to todays project that is presented to us. About bubut i would say that thl preservation proposed call of the massing is looking very its truncated. Its not really there. The facade were looking at today is so drastic versus the two alternatives that wer we goo live with. I think we have to go back to some more analysis. Lets open Public Comment back up. Im the applicant for the project. I just wanted to clear up a few things. Originally, we went to planning director directly, said, hey, were going to develop this property. We know of several folks here before us, that for whatever reason bought the building and sold it. So we had heard lowes wanted to do a fourstar hotel. So we went back to planning and said, hey, we think a hotel, fourstar, highend, a brand thats not San Francisco and it will work with folks who have been wanting to get in here for 25 years or more would really represent the city well, be a beautiful spot in all of the tourist areas. So everyone in planning said thats fine. So we designed a building, gorgeous building. It was modern and it was to take the whole building down. And then we found out there were historic issues. So we said, ok, we hire paige and turnbaugh. We found out when the sisters did an analysis document in 1968, in 72ish, Bedford Properties h who had the buildig werent in for plumbing or Kitchen Remodel permit and stripped the whole facade. So what you see today is not how the building was built. The brick was for the insulator. The whole thing was cladded in plaster, had cornises on top. They found pictures of it. I think i got mine on the internet and from the building that used to be next to us and it showed that we put it in a report that we originally submitted to planning. I dont know if you have seen that. So the three consultants we paid for who work for the city, too, said in reality, its not historic but over 50 years and has the brick and all of that. So recently, we found out that the resources could be a big issue. So we said, had we known this now or known this then, we would have met you two and a half, three areas agthree years ago ae talking. The act text architects designed there were finishes that coincide with the neighborhood. So just to let you know, we have been a great neighbor. Wear from the city. Weawere not a bunch of east gu. Im a fifth generation of north beach actually third, they took my great grandfather to to angels camp. We go way back. And, you know, hear we are trying to be politically correct. Do you think for the neighborhood. We went to the golden gate Tenants Association and no one opposes the neighborhood. So thats how weve gotten to this point. I wasnt sure if you were aware of a lot of the facts that lead up to the meeting. Great. Commissioner johns . Commissioner had an interesting phrase, a context at large which i just would like to change around to the larger context. You know, if we could go back. I remember when that was the produce district. All those buildings and they were torn down and there was an offramp and onramp to 280. And that neighborhood, that was, what, 50, 60 years ago . And that neighborhood, the context changed dramatically. It changed from horses and wagons and produce carts to cars getting off and on and moving into. If you look at the street pattern down there, you see that there was supposed to be no contact between the pedestrians and those streets. The whole thing is a floor above. And a lot of the buildings on the north said is a rather whimsical thing that it has more in common in the context of the 1960s. Although, that, i think was i in 70s or early 80s building. So we have this ree relic. I had been coated with plaster and i would mention that, that. That we are really talking maybe were misleading ourselves here about this Historic Resource. And the facade of the Historic Resource because its not all that historic. It was coated in plaster. But reel getting back to my initial point here, in the contexcontext of this neighborhd the way it has developed and with this particular building, i dont see that theres anything that can be done of a preservation tape. Type. I appreciate the elucidation which means you keep something. Its a continuum of the retained elements thing. My thought is that the preservation alternative isnt much as i have understood the term. As i have come through todays hearing to understand the tell, it does preserve something. It preserves some of the bricks. But if thats all were doing, then i say the project seems to me to have a lot more benefits than the alternative. You think what were trying to maintain and were had conversations around this and that is the urban context and so, once we get into this project, its not a preservation project any more but understanding how can we retain the context of the street scape and pedestrian experience. So when there is an element thats retained, i see this as a pattern and a struggle when wear lookinwere looking at alternat. Realistically, i might ask miss shunt to comment. But searc theyre mitigating im. So demo of a Historic Resource is an impact and its supposed to mitigate that. So the one alternative that always occurs is no project because by building no project, you mitigate that automatically and the full presence preservath is how much can you build or modify, alter a project and still meet the secretary of standards and have a Historic Resource at the end of the day. The partial, in my history of work on this, has been there because when you only do the full and when you do the no, theres this ask for whats in between. The full preservation very rarely hits all tenants. So the partial is the in between. So i realize what the struggle that you guys tend to have is when the project itself starts pulling from elements of what a partial would normally have lent itself to do. So when they keep pieces of the building or elements that are historic and then how do we crest that and analyze that. So mann . I think rich did a great job of explaining that. I do think just to clarify, what youre being asked to comment on today is the range of alternatives, not on the design per say. I realize that theres a fine line there. But its important for them to hear. One option i heard is because of what rich just said, that the project yoursel yourself is it , perhaps you dont do a partial. But its something with less of an impact on the records resour. Yes, thats exactly right. Trial t. We need a range of any alternatives. As rich has stated, the noproject, we have a full preservation because that avoids the impact. We can also have alternatives that seek to reduce but dont avoid the impact and thats where the partial comes in. As rich has stated, to reit rate, itreiterate, the partialt avoid the preservation impact but will reduce it significantly. And i think my observation would be and others have observed this, as well, the proposed project is probably pretty close to what we would have come up with had the complete demo project been proposed. And so i think we sort of got to that through our urban Design Review and this retained elements policy. So weve got, basically, a partial preservation as the proposed project. Before we get to are perlman, i want to go back six years and remind everyone of the Planning Commission not really understanding the dialogue that our commission had around the draft eirs. Thats what started about asking for more diagrams, more images. This is all we got six years ago, one page, and it didnt articulate. It was be the massing. This is evolving. I think that theyre looking to us for advice and thats what were Getting Better at doing. I just wanted to reel look at this in a dus different way, ths the only building in that area that according to the owner and commissioner johns didnt actually even look like this. All of the buildings around it, the one next to it is a 1980s building. The one to left of it, as youre facing it is a 1980s or 1990s building. Across the street is a parking garage, as i understand. So what are w pray pra preservi. Have a building that isnt there at all, like the 450 ofarrell. If its not really much of a Historic Resource, propose a project that doesnt have it there. Because that would be a full dem lugs. Demolition. Even though a building has been changed from what it was originally, alterations after the fact become significant. That is exactly my point. This gets into retained developments. This is about showing an early 20th century what the street escape was. Im appreciative of commenting early. Thats the point of the change weve made. So im grateful for that. I think the problem were having is that we all think that as designers do and were concerned about the visual effect on the resource. And thats really the essence of this discussion. But i d do think if our job iso assess whether these are reasonable range, they are. I think the range of alternatives is reasonable here. Ill just close, i guess, by saying, im not i support heritages position on facadism and i always have when commissioner haas was on the commission. So i would support retaining the significant elements of the building, but the new design needs to speak to it. And so im just offering that i think this design, even the proposed project or the partial presencer vacation can speapresn a better way and still be contemporary. I think the project sponsor gets clear direction and im not sure where they are. So i heard two different proposals. I heard one proposal that says this range of alternatives is appropriate and i heard another proposal that said dont do the current partial, but actually do a scheme in the other direction with no retained elements. And i wonder, is that something that the Commission Wants do . I think you have to decide . We stepped into this, you think, because we had that joint meeting with the Planning Commission when we asked them, are we doing a good job and when it came to things like this, they said no. Wear not satisfied with you saying this is a range of alternatives and an analysis that raises the appropriate issues. That doesnt help us. What we really would like you folks to do is to make some suggestions for how it could be done better. And now we find ourselves on the one hand saying, well, wear being asked to decide whether this range of alternatives is reasonable didnt on the other hand, what a lot of people are struggling with, i sense is, we want do what the Planning Commission said it wanted us to do and that is make some suggestions for the betterment of mankind and perhaps we cant do both of those things. I mean, maybe thats in response to my comment earlier. So maybe i can clarify. I do think theres two Different Things that you have been asked to do and one is to look at the range and separately and perhaps more in an advisory capacity to the commission, look at the designers. Design issues. Your comments on the design issues could be incorporated as the project moves forward, but i think more specifically, with respect to the eir so to develop this to move forward with the eir. So i think both things are legitimate. Im not suggesting you shouldnt do the advisory role. Its more of a challenge on this project because were talking about a very difficult design problem. When we have a larger project site where theres some Historic Resources and we have a lot of dusdustdifferent options, we cae them for direction. If you move this tower over here, it might work better. So we can give more direction. What i would propose, my recommendation is that the partial preservation be further developed, closer to the proposed project and articulate some more Design Elements that the tie poling responds to the historic building. We would have one they would like us to build and one that responds to the context. That answers one question lurking in my mind. You said the preservation alternative should retain significant elements. My question was, well, do those significant elements have to include anything in the interior, any of the wooden beams . No. We get back, i dont want to offense heritage but its some versus of the facade is what were talking about. After we cross that bridge, what do we put on top of them or under them . My response, its a design exercise and need knee needs toe responsresponsive. Mr. Asif you keep it, the new den needs to respond to it. Whether theres an opportunity on the interior, like the auto row buildings that were a problem or a challenge back then becoming the entry lobby to the new hotel, right . Here we dont have that opportunity. The interior doesnt have any suggestiosuggestionsignificance. So i wish i could see something that designwise was coherent as opposed to a new building plopped on top. Youre saying no matter what alternative, thats what you would like to see . Indeed. I wish the proposed project would do that. So if thats the situation, then, perhaps, if i could interpret what youre all saying, this range of alternatives is just fine for an overall bulk standpoint but more relationship with the design and new part. Right on the for example. Quantitative assessment and qualitative. We think this is reasonable quantitatively. I think we have concerns about how it affects ok. I agree with commissioner highlands, with what he just said. Do we eliminate the partial alternative and talk about design because its not alternative, because its odd, no matter what and so much the same as the project and then lets just focus on the design of it. Will this come to the arc . No, were bringing it to the full commission. Im saying the design will not come back. Its not a lan landmark. Could it be satisfactory if there were an alternative masked the same as the proposed project but had a different design on the facade . They can respond more theyre architects and they know what im talking about. [ laughter ] so it sounds like you would be ok with not having a partial preservation but changing the design in more of the direction you designed. It can still be contemporary. Jusjust the massing and articulation can respond. How about if we leave the option with the project sponsor to continue. Here is what im worried about, is what if it gets to the Planning Commission and they have better drawings and a better understanding of all of the agen adjacencies and someboy complains about a cast shadow. If you want to pursue a partial as a way of communicating different impacts, then i would say we leave that up to you. Or just leave it in the way it is and follows the project. Yeah. Thats clear. That would be clear. I wouldnt want do we have concurrence . Just concurrence that the range of alternatives are good and from a qualitative perspective, we want to advise the project sponsor and Planning Commission that the current design of the proposed project can be better designed in context. How is that . Find. Fine. So sorry we put you through this. This is very good conversation for us and as a city, were struggling with this retained element. And well have a lot of projects coming before us. So this is going to help us to get better at it. Thank you. Are we all set . Are we done . Were adjourned. The new friday farmer his market is in the u. N. Plaza. It features the best of San Francisco. Grab fresh foods and veggies from the heart of the farmers market. Shop from marker local vendors. Engage in free diy craft sessions and grab lunch representing cuisine from around the world. [ ] we offer 60 varieties of organic fruit and 30 varieties of conventional. One of our best sellers so sellers is our manager in. It is super sweet. We sell 600 pounds a week. One of the things they like about the market as i get to see my regulars on a weekly basis. I get to meet their families and kids and it is really good to be here. San francisco won my heart. One of our vegetables that is very popular is kale. A lot of people go for dino kale our mission is to make sure we have access for everybody to get organic foods, no matter your financial status. We make greeting cards, invitations, enamel pins, and we do workshops. I am participating in this market because it is a great opportunity for local makers to sell to a really Diverse Community of people in San Francisco. They partnered with the market here and invited us to come out and reach out to the public. We are going to do a full event of workshops where you get to arrange your own bouquet. We will teach you all the tricks and techniques and you will be able to take home a bouquet of your own. You. [ ] we really are wanting to bring opportunities to the community to introduce these local makers to a larger audience. This is my own pakistani recipe. It goes with rice, chicken, lamb we have a very delicious drink. We have a lots of variety of foods. [ ] we do lots of different curries. We do three different types of wontons. Spring rolls, too. Thats right. I