Transcripts For SFGTV Regular Planning Commission 101515 201

SFGTV Regular Planning Commission 101515 October 17, 2015

Estimation item 112011. 0671x at 1395 11 uped street and pennsylvania avenue, a local project authorization for continuance to november 12, 2015 and item 2 for case no. 20 11006712pca requirement for cu requirement for residential mergers. Proposed for continuace to december 10th, 2015. Any Public Comment on the items proposed for continuance . Not seeing any Public Comment is closed. And commissioner antonini. I think my mic is off. I could talk loudly. Thank you. There we go. Good. I make a motion to continue items 1 and 2 to the dates specified. Second. Very good, commissioners. Thank you on that motion to continue items as proposed. Commission antonini. Aye. Commissioner johnson . Aye. Commissioner richards . Aye. Commission wu . Aye. And Commission President fong. Aye. So moved commissions, that motion passes unanimously 50 and places you under your consent calendar, all matters listed constitute a consent calendar. Are considered to be routine by the Planning Commission and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote of the commission. There will be no separate discussion of this item unless a member of commission, public or staff so requests in which event the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a separate hearing. You have one item under consent, no. 3, case no. 2015008251cua, 2120 greenwich street, a conditional use authorization. Any Public Comment on the one item on the consent calendar . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed commissioner antonini. Move to approve. Second. On that motion to approve item 3 under consent, commission anioni. Aye. Commission johnson. Aye. Commission richards . . Commissioner wu. Commission president fong. Aye approved 50. Item c commission matters draft minutes for september 3rd and october 1st. Any Public Comment . Seeing none, commission richards. I move to approve september 3d and have a minor correction on october 1. So noted. Second. I seconded. Yes. Thank you, commissioners. On that motion than to dopt the minutes for september 3rd, 2015 and october 1st, 2015, as corrected by commission richards, commission antonini. Aye. Commission johnson. Aye. Commission wu. Aye. Commission president fong. Aye. That passes 50. Commission antonini . Thank you. I thought that presentation by the member of the rent board was extremely informative last week. I have some comments, but first i have a question. They mentioned that their owners are allowed to raise residential rates an amounts not to exceed 60 of the cip of the San Francisco bay area per year. Is that cumulative or is it use it or lose it . You could bank it. You can you bank it. Okay. That important that it be done. We have stayed that with kind formula and kept of the rates exactly not that formula, but more closer to the cpi. The other thing that was really interesting when you look at the chart of the evictions and were hearing a lot about it now, i dont remember quite as much comment during the period 19992000, but there were a lot more in that period, in the range of 2700 to 2800, still a lot this year. If you look at the chart for the long period of time, almost every year there are 1400 on average or more than that, probably. So what also was very interesting to me is find out that 75 of the evictions were for fault such as nonpayment of rent. Which is probably something is going to happen no matter what conditions we have, because if you dont pay the rent, you are going to get evicted. There might be a tendency for owners to try to evict people a little quicker if there are a lot more renters around to take the spot. Its good to put things in perspective and see the Historical Perspective to talk into the context of 20 years to realize what is the situation is. I thought it was extremely good and very navative. Nothing further, commissions we can move on to department matters, item 6, directors announcements. Thank you, jonas. I just wanted to let you know that i spent this last weekend in cambridge, a meeting i attend every year with my counterparts in the 30 largest cities in the country. There were several well, several points of discussion, but i will say that the most common theme that all cites are addressing are issues of equity and Affordable Housing in ways that were surprising to me and in places that were supposing to me. Even in my hometown detroit, which has experienced severe economic distress and just came out of bankruptcy and concerns as areas are improved, the equity issues that residents are facing and the type of rent reindevelopment reinvestment is happening and its interesting to hear about that happening across the economic spectrum and it was a theme that came up repeatedly in the three days of meetings that we had. That concludes my comments. Thank you. Item 7 review of past events at board of supervisors and board of appeals and Historic Preservation commission. The Zoning Administrator told me that the board of appeals met yesterday, but there were no items that pertained to the commission. There is no board report excuse me, the Historic Preservation commission did not meet yesterday which will place under general Public Comment not to exceed a period of 15 minutes. At this time the members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subjectmatter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items with respect to agenda items your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. Each member of the public may address the commission for up to 3 minutes. Any general speaker cards . Hell yes commissioners tony kelly Vice President of the potrero boosters. We looked at the advance calendar and when are we going start having a conversation and actual Commission Hearing about design in the eastern neighborhoods for these large projects . There were two large projects. One was continued today. One was continued a couple of weeks ago coming up on november 12th. There is no room it look like for discussion of design issues before that happens. So the problem that was raised months ago, and most recently here over the past few weeks is still there. Which is we know we desperately need help on Design Standards and Design Review for these large projects. And yet the projects are coming to you before we have a chance to do anything about it. What i just gave to you are the Design Reviews of the latest ones for both projects. Its a total of ten sentences for both projects combined. These are large projects. They take a couple of acres a piece, folks. 550 Housing Units and yet there is hardly any discussion of the architecture. We met with individual commissioners and heard many negative comments about their design and havent heard a single positive comment about their designs. So when commissioners are we actually going to do this . Are we going to try to redesign these buildings on the fly at the commission on the 12th . I think you know, because you had to go through that before. I think you know and we know that is really not the way to go. We urge you to have some sort of conversation at least about design and preferably some Design Standards, guidelines, principles, something that we need to follow to improve these projects . Because were not going to get improved architecture or improved designs for all of these blocky, monotonous, mindnumbing buildings in this format does not do it. We are negotiating and working with the two developers on their projects, but were not able t to pudesign on the table. That is your job. That is on your desk. That is exactly what you guys can do as commissioners. And were desperate for your help on that. Were preparing ron mcgill, i think you have heard of him and i from the boosters are preparing a presentation we want to give you as part of the hearing about design issues, but we dont have a time to do that the we cant do it during Public Comment. We need to have conversation before get to the large projects. Otherwise its going to be a real scrum when the projects coming up along with Everything Else and potential approval of the project and that doesnt lead to better buildings. That is how we have gotten into the architectural mess we have in potrero and hope we can have discussion. Thank you. Any additional Public Comment . General Public Comment is closed. Commissioners that places under your regular calendar item 8, a Market Street hub informational presentation. Commissioners id like to welcome mia small to the commission. While mia has been with the staff for a couple of years this is her first presentation to the Planning Commission. Mia has been with us two years as a staff architect. For the previous ten years she ran an architectural practice based in rhode island focused on urban design and earned her professional working for architects in San Francisco and new york and graduate of the department has forwarded a memo to you and were following up with additional details. This project arrives at intersection of two of the departments priorities. Increasing Affordable Housing, and supporting the quality of San Franciscos public realm. And two exist efforts. The hub is one of the key areas identified in the heart of city placebased initiative to further establish Market Street as San Franciscos premiere civic street and enhance the livability of its neighborhoods. This component represents the westernmost portion and represents gateways and connections to other citywide initiatives in civic center and Market Street. Historically this neighbor was known as the hub, that hosted street lines that reached across the city. The heart of the citys goals are not only to make great public space, but to help neighborhoods in into Market Street and make sure that they are welcome and accessible to all. Along with the heart of the city this project also seeks to build upon and refine the market octavia plan that defines this area as soma west. Not to be confused with western soma. Its a completely separate area. And encourage the formation as relatively highdensity mixeduse residential neighborhood as it is immediately adjacent to significant transit. This is the boundary of the area were talking about not only the eastern notch of market octavia indicated in orange and the line defines the edge of the area plan in general. There is a small dashed or dotted red line that indicates the van nes van ness and market, including the muni station. This is the defined area were talking about. It takes one small corner out, and part of that is adjacency to the public realm plan. We have met with the Community Advisory committee three times since may for input on the shape of this effort and hear their feedback, along with an interesting in affordability potential. We heard their highlighted concern was desire to capture the best public realm improvements in a time frame that also takes advantage of the Current Development attention. This has helped form the scope and goals that i will describe next. So what are the scope and goals for the hub project in . Really two components make up this effort. The first is rezoning and second is public realm plan and i will talk about the former first. So the most important goal of the rezoning effort would be to increase the amount of Affordable Housing. Current applications and Pipeline Projects anticipate 3700 new Housing Units with just over 700 affordable ones. Through some initial Data Analysis with consultant strategic economics, we found that by making modest adjustments to height and bulk, rezoning could increase affordability requirements and add 700 below marketrate units. Essentially if inclusionary requirement was increased to 23 onsite and 38 offsite, half of the units would be affordable, getting us to the 33 . Note that in this change 600 units being added and then 700 being affordable, obviously the 700 is larger than 6 alcohol. So the additional amount is offsite increased and also the fees that are going inlieu. Second is to increase transit current projections estimate new net parking or sort of offstreet parking to be about 1900 Parking Spaces or about. 5 per unit. That is what we look at under existing conditions under the market octavia an effort that would not only benefit residents of the hub, but the city as a whole. The rezoning study would also look at parking reductions to decrease the impacts on transit at this large multimodal intersection, and provide a more pedestrian and bikefriendly you environment. With. 25 reductions per unit, even with the significant increase of units there is actually an overall parking reduction. So it actually drops 500 spaces to 1400 spaces within the hub area. The third goal would be in supporting the arts. This area currently hosts several important arts organizations including the San Francisco [ music [ music ] [ music [ music ] conservatory and Ballet School and honda site. Providing space supports cultural ecosystem of the center. The hub rezoning would also study the mix of the uses making heuer that what while its intended to be a residential neighborhood there is such a balance at a transit location of all uses. Additional goals include making sure height adjustments are thoughtfully scoped. Skyline will be a prominent highrise district from vantage points across the city, specifically the west. I would like to talk about the public realm plan as the second portion of the project. The goal of this effort is to build more specificity into the conceptual groundwork approved in the market octavia plan so they will be knitted together. So market octavia has an approved plan and this is simply look at it more detail as development actually approaches. As the hub contains one of the largest intersections in the city, Market Street and van ness avenue, and a way to support the larger heart of the City Initiative would be to establish public plazas that befit the scale and importance of the crossroads, add a jewel to the public space necklace of market space and inviting gateways into the neighborhoods and beyond. A second focus area is to build upon the market octavia public realms to foster safe neighborhoods and make sure that the several requires midblock alleys, c3 parcels that meet the requirements for midblock alleys here, these Work Together as a neighborhood pattern. Well continue to work with the market octavia cac for additional Public Engagement and outreach as the effort moves forward. What is actually shower shown here is the public realm plan for the area. And to support the neighborhood in defining its identity. Many large contemporary projects arrive in a burgeoning residential neighborhood. Due to the windy conditions of this part of the city, this project is expected to have similar features. For example, towers will likely be round in shape have canopies and will consider the overall effects of how shapes and evolving character. And finally this effort offers a revisited eir process that can more precisely describe the potential impacts of high rices rises. It will be county of to understand the larger cumulative wind patterns so we have the best and accurate outcomes for the neighborhood. We hope this effort can produce the best possible public benefit. Im happy to take your questions. Thank you. We may have questions. Opening up to Public Comment, if there is any . Seeing no Public Comment, close Public Comment. Commissioner antioni. And thank you for the report. There was a time when a portion of south have van ness did no exist and Howard Street turns to van ness from mission on Howard Street. That is why you the streets moving in strange angles. Coming up howard i have to make maneuvers to get back on van ness north or south. That is one thing that makes it more difficult. The other thing you mentioned diminishing the number of residential parking places. But that is only a small percentage of the traffic. Most people park their cars and then they go about their business. What most of the traffic is from these are major streets, and people have to get from north to south or east to west. And that is going to continue to happen. The best solution would have been a subway under van ness which some day we may do. There is going to be the same number of carspt people have to get particularly on u. S. 101, where they are moving northern and they really dont want to be in San Francisco, but they are forced to go through San Francisco. I think we have to be farsighted enough to make decisions base on longterm planning to minimize tract impacts and not think traffic isnt going to be there just because we have fewer parking places. The other thing about the public plaza, i think its a great idea. You mentioned the wind. Its a factor. Its always going to be there. I am sure we can d

© 2025 Vimarsana