Plans show the intent of james, owner and project sponsor, with the Real Estate Investment portfolio of 32l. L. C. Is seeking your approval to eliminate the four existing affordable units on this parcel and maximize the potential of his investment. The tenants in units 1 and 3 didnt accept the buyout. Im a former owner in may 2017 when the building was for sale. They taught a tenantoccupied building in 2017. He didnt intend to be the landlord for long. Andrew zachs law firm offered the tenant buyout disclosure declarations in february of 2018 on his behalf. On march 22nd, 2018, when noonmaker had a preapp meeting for his project, how extremely distressing for these tenants to learn that their rentcontrolled homes would be gone. I live in a sixunit rentcontrolled building. I wouldnt know what to do if i was faced with this calamitous situation. The building would be completely reconfigured, moved and added to and naturally occurring affordable and smaller rental staff would be eliminated. In contrast to policy objective 3. [ please stand by ] approve this exception to our policy. Caller a number of the tenants unit and senior and disability action. I want to expand on the general plan applications in this case. The second major objective of the 2014 Housing Element is to retain existing Housing Units without jeopardizing affordability. Policy 2. 1 is to discourage the demolition of sound drifting out of in a net increase in Affordable Housing. And this is going to result in Affordable Housing . It is not. Its all going to be market rate. Does the permit call for demolition . It Marshall Neal does call for demolition. The Housing Element policy 3. 1 says to preserve rental units, especially rentcontrolled units, to meet the citys Affordable Housing needs. In the end the project will have eliminated affordable rent controlled units to have four unaffordable units. Taken as a whole theres no project more inconsistent with the general plan, and as such must be rejected by the commissioners. If it is approved it will render the Affordable Housing preservations in the general plan meaningless. And it will have a blue blint for speculators to mock and bypass them. [bell] if the project goes forward, i urge the commissioners to keep this building largely affordable and rent controlled. I also urge the commissioners to consider devising a process whereby tenants and affordability status is mandated to be examined to the general plan consistency at the start of an application and not as in this case way afterwards. Thank you. Caller hi, i am joe garvey and i live near this project and i fully support the project. I support it because the Planning Department supports it. And i support it i support because it maximizes density. This parcel is three blocks from bart. It also keeps four units rent controlled. While adding eight new units, eight to nine new units. I was noticing that in the d. R. Request statement, they said that this project goes far beyond the average or norm on san jose avenue. This is a 40foot tall building, three blocks from bart, in a major city. That thinking and that mentality of far beyond the average or norm is what weve been experiencing for decades, which has us in a housing crisis now. So i would urge you to support this project at its 40foot high limit, its scope, its proximity to bart, its density, and allow new residents to live in this neighborhood and enjoy it with the other residents. Thank you. Caller hello, my name is Michael Gowan and i live near this project also and im in support of the project. Mainly because i dont believe that we can solve our housing crisis by keeping things the way they are. We need more density along transit corridors. And if were going to have the number of People Living in california and living in the bay area and in San Francisco, the number of people who are here and want to come here, we need to shake things up and rethink how were using our space and people who have enjoyed things being the way they are are going to have to be more flexible. Because it doesnt work the way that it is and if we continue to build urban sprawl, we dont have the freeway infrastructure to support that. Its back to the environment. Leaving things the way they are is simply unrealistic and its not sustainable. So to be inflexible in thinking and, you know, feeling that folks have a right for things not to change and stay the way they are while we have this housing crisis is just childish and makes absolutely no sense. So thats why i support the project. Good afternoon, commissioners. San francisco landuse coalition. I urge you to support the d. R. S before and you to scale back the proposal project, the proposed picture at 350 san jose avenue to send a clear message to serial speculators that making profits on the back of dispossessed tenants is not okay. Heres the facts the law firm initiated a buyout shortly after they bought the building in february 2018. As evidenced by the prebuy out document. One tenant died three months later and the sole remaining tenant, ann kong, somehow buys the apartment nine months later. We dont have the smoking gun but theres circumstantial evidence along the way, including the Mail Exchange between the sole remaining tenant, miss kong, and mr. Numamacher which she ends with the following statement im still interested in discussing the buyout but i was out of town for a while and came home to news. Things a bit heck tic hectic at. This is not the only gross miscarriage of justice in this case and there is another issue at hand. This is a typea Historic Resource which has a much lower threshold for demo cal. The staff should have had a conditional use authorization for this property anyway. In light of all of these misdeeds, our ask is simple [bell] shrink the building to shrink the serial speculators profit, knock out the fourth floor to make sure that this monstrosity will not become a public park, and require all 12 units to be rent controlled and much smaller. Yes, you heard me smaller. To make them affordable by design. And those people who think that these demands are childish, im sorry, its unemployment crisis. The state of california has to shut down the Employment Office for two weeks because they cannot manage the workload. So, please [bell] stop the accusations. Caller hello, commissioners, my name is nicholas spanger and i live and work close to the project. And our city is in a housing crisis and blocking new housing just shameful. The city will never be able to support our growing population by trying to keep buildings as small as possible. Those against this increase wish to live with less density. Theres a plethora of areas that are not a big city such as San Francisco. The site is located three blocks from bart and its a perfect location for additional homes. This is a good project that is fully code compliant and approved already by the Planning Department. It has the Historic Building into the new project while maintaining the rentcontrol status. It renovates the existing floor units. So i urge you to support this project. Thank you. Caller good afternoon, commissioners. My name is mike chen an and im a resident of San Francisco. Im not seeking in support or opposition, but i would like to make note that the commission has before it a series of allegations around tenants and tenant buyouts but does not have really sufficient information to really make a make a decision. And i would say also that its a poor place to have these decisions at the Planning Commission, they should be made through city law or through civil courts or as a criminal case. I think that thats the way to adjudicate these things is, for example, for the commission to advocate for a registry to be able to track buyouts better and to make sure that you advocate that buyouts must be public. And it just seems really strange that the way that we protect tenants is not by doing a holistic thing, only by blocking developments through d. R. Process. I would want a more comprehensive way to make sure that tenants get the protections that they have and deserve in San Francisco. Thank you. Caller hi, can you hear me . Clerk we can. Caller can you hear me, folks . Clerk yes, we can. Caller hello . Great. Commissioners, my name is mark norton, a 45year resident of San Francisco. Others have made very articulate arguments about what is wrong where this project. I wanted to add my voice. We have a clear example of profit in the interest of speculators above people. The more we go down the path of destruction of Affordable Housing we create the growing social and political unrest that we are experiencing in this country. You know this, we all know this. But somehow we want to stick our heads in the sand and pretend otherwise. Good luck with that. Thank you for your consideration. Do right thing. Clerk okay, members of the public i take it i take it back. We have one more caller. Caller hello . My name is robin germane and i have lived okay. I have lived in the neighborhood for many years. I just really want to just take a moment and pause and im very much against this project for a number of reasons. I knew penny, and i have lived next to her and i know this story and what the tenants went through. But more importantly at this point im really concerned that everyone keeps saying that we need to build more housing, we need to build mor more housing. What we have is empty apartments. I have counted two blocks on san jose avenue between 24th and 26th, and there are at least 20 empty apartments that have been empty even before covid. Although, of course, more units are empty because of covid. And i really dont understand why we need to build something when what we really need to do is to make these apartments affordable so that people, families, people who are students, people who have service dogs can live in these places. This development is not going to meet any of those needs. He has made so much money, he doesnt need anymore money. I dont understand the idea of packing so much into a very small space. To say that theyre small units and were going to have lots of them does not help the community. It does not help the neighborhood. And im really upset, i just feel that we should take a moment and look around. There are a lot of empty apartments. [bell] why are they empty . We need to look at what is already built. We dont need to tear down Historic Buildings, turn them into ugly glass and steel high rises and, in fact, that was done across the street. Its a four unit condo that has been built, they tore down a Beautiful House and built that. Half of the units are corporate housing. Theyre not even for real tenants. Every few months new people come in. And the other unit is empty. So i feel like we need to look around. [bell] you people on planning should step up to what were experiencing now. And the idea of commuting is clerk thank you very much, your time is up. Caller good afternoon, commissioners. Can you hear me . Clerk yes, we can. Caller hi there. This is catherine petrin, an architectural historian and i write in support of the d. R. Requesters and urge the commission to not approve the project for the reasons stated in the letter that i submitted earlier. To summarize, the project will demolish an intact historic iraq that wilitalianate residence, a 145yearold building. This was determined by the citys south mission Historic Resource survey. So this is a city designated arated Historic Resource individually eligible for the california register, a building of the highest importance. Though the project sponsors characterize the proposed project as a remodel, it is by all definitions a demolition. Because the buildings footprint is low, and its to add new construction. Its an opportunity to retain and incorporate an Historic Building into a meaningful project that would satisfy many more department and city goals regarding preservation and antidisplacement, Affordable Housing, sustainability, etc. I have to question the value of the myriad longrange planning efforts, multiple surveys planned and Design Guidelines that have taken place over many years all requiring vast amount of time and resources. Theyre meant to facilitate meaningful preservation planning. And the spirit of this work should not be disregarded as is happening here. We can do much better. I support the d. R. , i hope that you will too. Thank you. Caller hi, i am ed dileski and i live and work in the neighborhood and i support this project. I support housing. This is a muchneeded addition to the Housing Stock in an otherwise very dense neighborhood. The lot is currently underdeveloped. There is far too many restrictions on new housing in San Francisco. This project respects the facade and the architecture, the original italianate architecture will not be demolished and it will be enhanced and improved and made beautiful. Please, approve this project as the sponsors have presented it. And thank you for your time. Clerk okay, members of the public, this is last call for public comment. If you would like to submit your public testimony, please press star, 3, to get into the queue. Commissioners, i have no members of course one more. Go ahead, speaker. Caller hi, yes, my name is sergei genomi and i live and work in the area. Im definitely happy to see that were going to get more housing in this particular area that has been as i believe it does not have the amount of housing that it should get. I definitely appreciate that the sponsors are keeping the architecture and the style. I totally approve of the project and i hope that it does move forward as definitely most families in the city, and we need workingclass families in the city as well. I support it. Thank you. Caller hello, i am john paul, and im a supporter of this project at 50 san jose avenue. The project developers have done a lot to maintain Affordable Housing in San Francisco. I believe that four units are going to remain under rent control and they have accepted parking and its also going to be under rent control. And the former site, i live close by, i have seen it outside of this smaller building. We are now going to have housing, 12 units from the a. D. U. And i believe this is good, this is good for San Francisco. This is good for the community. And its a better use of the lot which was, like i said, an older building which four of the units will be remaining rent control and then the parking lot is now going to become more housing. Thank you so much. Clerk okay, commissioners, i have no members of the public requesting to speak. So the matter is now before you. Im sorry, i apologize. Of course, one more member of the public is requesting to speak after we closed public comment. Go ahead, caller. Caller hi, this is joe cassidy and im a residential builder and one of the project sponsors a brother of the project sponsors. Im in favor of this project. Its unbelievable that this project has gone on for three years and everyone wonders why housing is so expensive in San Francisco. So id like to educate some people who made a lot of comments here today. You have to buy the land. Construction costs are 550 a square foot on the hard costs. The soft costs are another 50, which is 20 of the hard costs. And then theres the banks and the loans. And then theres the real estate fees. The total costs are over 1,200 a square foot and thats a fact. I would also like to say that there was an awful lot of attacks on these people and my brother has built all kinds of buildings in San Francisco and contributed to the tax base and built many affordable units throughout this city for the last 30 years. In fact, mr. Butler said that if my brother was involved in a project down on in north beach and he is the very one who drove up on to the sidewalk and attacked one of our workers with his car and then sped off. So this is a great project, number one. I think that the setbacks are reasonable. I mean, 57 feet back from the back fence. Decks are what people want today. They want more outdoor space, especially after covid. [bell] and the the project is good. Its affordable. The planning staff approved this project. So, please, approve it and move this ahead. People need to get a life. Thank you. Caller hello, can you hear me . Clerk we can. Caller oh, great. Hi. My name is alexander wells and im a tenant, actually, in this building 350 san jose and i strongly urge the commissioner to continue to support this project. Our city is in a major housing crisis and to stop this project from happening, which will be building new homes, just seems crazy to me. Ive been listening to all of those speaking and im appalled by their comments. My husband and i are teachers in the city and we work very hard and we have grown up in San Francisco and the bay area. And listening to all of these neighbors comment is just it saddens me, it disgusts me. I think that theyre sounding dramatic and insane i know every tenant in this building and i knew the ones that used to live here and there was absolutely no pressure, no abuse for anyone to leave. The project seems like a wonderful addition to San Francisco and especially to this neighborhood the plan is to create new and much more livable homes for young families like mine, which is growing more and more. And we realize how much space we need. This current apartment is not enough space for us to live in. I would love to have a deck, especially with covid19, we know how important outdoor space is and decks being built into our home so we can have private outdoor space. Its unlivable in terms