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[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Good afternoon, and welcome to the San Francisco Planning Commission hearing for Thursday, 07/10/2025. When we reach the item you're interested in speaking to, we ask that you line up on the screen side of the room or to your right. Each speaker will be allowed up to three minutes. And when you have thirty seconds remaining, you will hear a chime indicating your time is almost up. When your allotted time is reached, I will announce that your time is up and take the next person cued to speak. There is a very convenient timer on the podium where you can watch, your time tick down and see how much time you have left. Excuse me. Please speak clearly and slowly, and if you care to, state your name for the record. I ask that we silence any mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings. And finally, I will remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. I'd like to take role. Commission President So?

[Lydia So (President)]: Present.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commission Vice President Moore? Here. Commissioner Braun? Here. Commissioner Campbell?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Here.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner Imperial?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Here.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Present. And Commissioner Williams? Here. Thank you, commissioners. First on your agenda is consideration of items proposed for continuance. Items one a, b, and c for case numbers 2019Hyphen017622 DNX CUAN VAR at 570 Market Street downtown large project authorization, conditional use authorization, and variance are all proposed for continuance to 09/11/2025. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on their continuance calendar only on the matter of continuance. You need to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and your continuance calendar is now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Move to continue items one a, b, and c. Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to continues continue items one a and b, commissioner Campbell. Aye. Commissioner McGarry. Aye. Commissioner Williams. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Imperial. Aye. Commissioner Moore. Aye. And commission president Soh. Aye. So moved. Commissioners, that motion passes unanimously seven to zero. Zoning administrator would say

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: I will continue item one c as proposed.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. That will place us under your consent calendar. All matters listed here under constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the planning commission and may be acted upon by a single roll call vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission, the public, or staff so request. In which event, the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item at this or a future hearing. Item two, case number 2025Hyphen003422CUA at 60607 Broadway, conditional use authorization. And item three, case number 2025Hyphen003751CUA at 5960 Mission Street conditional use authorization. Members of

[Lydia So (President)]: the public, this is your opportunity to request that either of these two consent calendar items be pulled off and heard today under the regular calendar or a future date. Again, you need

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed and your consent calendar is now before you.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Commissioner Moore. Move to approve.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to approve items on consent, commissioner Campbell?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? And commission president Soh?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero, placing us under commission matters. Item four, land acknowledgement.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: The commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, or forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramaytush and Leni community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. Item five, consideration of adoption draft minutes for the 06/18/2025 closed session and the 06/26/2025 regular session as have been amended. And I apologize we strive to get it right the first time, but sometimes we miss things. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on their minutes.

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: Hi. Good more good afternoon, Georgia Shudish. I couldn't see the amended minutes because they couldn't download them before I left my house a little an hour ago. And I just wondered if it says there that I did speak on behalf of the women who were with those so they know they know it's gonna be September 11, all those women? Okay. Alright. That's good. I think miss Hester's gonna call in, but I don't know. You should check your machine and see. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, miss Shudisch. Last call for public comment on their minutes. Again, you need to come forward. Seeing none, we'll go to our reasonable accommodation requester.

[Sue Hestor (Public commenter, remote)]: This is Sue Hess here by remote control. Thank you very much for reminding the minutes. The thing that I really want to know is how they're going to be reflected permanently because it's unusual that minutes are amended and they should acknowledge that you have received an email from me dated yesterday bringing out questions about what was in the minutes and they have been amended as of this morning apparently, which was hard to download to put it mildly. So basically I was online and tried to figure out what was going on on the eighteenth, the remote session. And the Planning Commission did not go back on the SFGov TV side or any other that I could detect to concession at the end. And I want to put that on record right now that the Planning Commission did not follow its own rules on its own agenda on the eighteenth. They started with a quorum of every member present, seven members and three members walked away from that hearing and were not involved in the closed session apparently. And you didn't go back into open session at the end even though it was on your agenda. It was not broadcast on SFGovTV. And so the efforts that you took on the twenty sixth at the very, very, very, very end of year agenda, the twenty sixth to amend the hearing on the eighteenth wasn't not the correct they were supposed to be fulfilled on the eighteenth. And so I want to make it in the record that you do not go into open session at the end of the meeting. And I don't know if because I haven't received anything whether the commissioners who walked out of hearing were notified or Ms. Shus was notified. She spoke at the opening session on the eighteenth. Thank you very much. Just asking for clarification in the record, not more than today, more than this phone call to be making people aware that this is an extremely important meeting. It was to hire a new planning director. And the record is opaque to say the least. Thank you very much.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Final last call for general or excuse me, for public comment, on the minutes. Seeing none, public comment is closed. And just to clarify the record, at the closed session special hearing following closed session, we did go back into open session. Item six, commission comments and questions.

[Lydia So (President)]: Well, I would like to take, this opportunity to, have a warm welcome to our new director, Sarah Dennis Phillips. Thank you for joining us. Do you wanna say a few words? Or you don't have to if you don't want to.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: I'm I'm happy to. I'm really, really honored to be here with all of you, and hello to the community who's joining us today. My first meeting is planning director, Sarah Dennis Phillips. I'm happy to give a little bit of information about myself maybe just for those who aren't aware. I started my career in planning here in San Francisco in 2000, and that early career included working for the illustrious commissioner Moore in my early days. I worked with the planning department in the citywide division from 2005 to 2013. I joined the Office of Economic and Workforce Development in its joint development program. Commissioners, you see joint dev here all the time, including for the railyards just, I think, last week, from 2014 to 2018. And then I had the really eye open experience of working in the private sector trying to build housing, from 2019 to 2023, which spanned much of the pandemic. So there was not a whole lot of building that came out of that term, but I did learn a lot. Really excited to return to the city in 2023, and those same reasons were led me led me to have a great deal of excitement about working with and for you as the planning commission, as the planning director. There's so much that planning has done and evolved to become in the years that I've been gone, and it's incredibly gratifying to see. I think the work that the department has led towards housing, towards equity, towards, trying to make our city a better place are market and known throughout the community, and and that was in no small part, a real incentive for me to to rejoin all of you in this work. I know we have a number of priorities together. I'm sure new priorities will emerge that I'm not entering with, and so I look forward to learning those with you. Yeah. And I'm just I I I know I have a lot to glean from all of your expertise. So and and I'm also a little nervous about my first commission meeting, so be kind to me. Welcome. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commission Abrahm?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: First, I just wanna say I'll keep it short and sweet, but welcome, Director Dennis Phelps. I'm really excited to work with you in the coming months and years. I have a I hate to divert to this, but Secretary Onan, we didn't vote on the minutes.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Oh, we did. We did.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: So I

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: don't know if we should circle back to the item.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: We did. We did. Commissioner Braun, thank you.

[Ian Birchall (Project Architect)]: That's not

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: such a good idea.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: I guess I got thrown off by the commenters. Through the chair, if we may go back to the minutes and since that public comment was closed, your minutes are now before you commissioners, as have been amended and corrected.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I just have a question about the minutes. So I I you were absolutely correct. We did go back into open session on the, I think it was the the eighteenth, after we came out of closed session, and that's reflected properly in the minutes. I I know I believe there were some issues with SFGov that day, and I'm just curious kind of, if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit more about what happened with the broadcast or the recording of that hearing?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: The closed session was not broadcast.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: As usual, yes. Yeah.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Yeah. It it simply wasn't broadcast. Yeah. So

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Were we was it then was the recording made? Did it reopen when we came back into open session?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: It should have on Webex. Yeah. Okay.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Alright. I I will adopt a motion to approve the minutes for June 18 and June 26.

[Lydia So (President)]: Second. Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to adopt your minutes, commissioner Campbell.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry. Aye. Commissioner Williams. Aye. Commissioner Braun. Aye. Commissioner Imperial.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye. Commissioner Moore.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Aye. And commission president Sowell.

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero. Thank you. Again, commissioner Braun. Item six, commission comments and questions if you have any additional.

[Lydia So (President)]: I'm

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: What? Do have you were you finished? Good.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner vice president Moore?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I just want to welcome, director Dennis Phillips. That's hard to say, but I will practice. It is I'm delighted to see you back in the saddle, and I'm delighted that you are taking the position. You are immensely qualified, and I do look forward to working with you. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Williams.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I too would like to welcome you to the commission and look forward to our our one to one that we we haven't yet scheduled, but we're working on it. And just wanna say that I I had a a good working relationship with the previous director, and I hope we we can continue that. So I look forward to it. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: If there's nothing further, commissioners, we can move on to department matters. Item seven, director's announcements.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: Commissioners, I thought I'd give a short announcement on my first one, mostly because June was a pretty interesting month, and and we missed some of it because of the the lack of hearing last week. The federal budget passed. And while, you know, we are here at the local level, I do think it's important that we're all aware, of the changes that impact San Francisco and that, the city and the planning department are tracking those changes as they impact San Francisco. Probably the two impacts that, we all should be most aware of in coming years, and I think the impact will unfold, is one, funding impacts to San Francisco. San Francisco's local budget did include a $400,000,000 set aside to mitigate some of the impacts of loss of federal funding to San Francisco for this year. Unfortunately, that 400,000,000 does not deal with the sustained lack of funding that we may see because of changes, with the federal budget level. So that's one thing to flag and for all all of us to be aware of, that we still have a challenge ahead of us, even though we've mitigated that challenge for this year. And second is the federal budget implications on our most vulnerable residents, which, you know, having watched this commission, I know you care deeply about. Changes to SNAP, to Medicaid, to CalFresh, work requirements, those are all gonna have a dramatic impact on how we serve our more vulnerable residents here in San Francisco. The administration, all of our other departments, and including planning, are are watching on those and trying to figure out how we can react and reform so that we are able to do the best we can to mitigate the impact to the residents that we're here to serve. So that's the federal budget. The state budget also passed last week. Probably most relevant there, there were two trailer bills attached to that budget that impact how we do our work here at planning, a b one thirty and s b one thirty one. They created, new exemptions to CEQA, some for housing projects, and for public projects, in a b one thirty. And then in s b one thirty one, exemptions for actions related to housing elements and housing element rezonings. The impact and the changes to how we do our work as a planning department, we're still figuring out. Some things to remember, particularly about the housing and public project exemptions, more on the housing project exemptions. They do come with specific San Francisco carve outs in some areas. There are labor requirements attached to those exemptions. They do need to be code compliant projects. And so it while we're excited to see more choice and opportunity for code compliant environmentally sustainable projects to move forward, how many projects will avail themselves of those exemptions? We don't know. We don't know how impactful it's gonna be to San Francisco, and we're gonna have to watch that and see how it moves forward. And then our local budget. It is primarily resolved. One important takeaway from our local budget is that while we were able to while the city and the mayor were able to address one third of our structural deficit, about 270,000,000 with this budget, there are two thirds of that structural deficit still to come. So, this budget year was incredibly hard. Future budget years, probably, for the next two years, will continue to be hard as we work to as the mayor and the board of supervisors work to chip away at that deficit. I think the lessons for, for me as a department head, for our department, and for you to think about, it we are gonna have to figure out how to do more with less, as always, and that was a challenge for this budget. We do really have an opportunity to lead with equity as we do our budget planning, and I know that I'm committed to and I know this mayor is committed to working through that budget process with transparency to community just because there are gonna be so many hard choices to make that, if we can hold those principles in mind, leading with equity and being transparent, we'll do the best we can even through some really hard decisions. Some exciting news on the upside. This week, was the conclusion of the competition that ULI held and the city partnered with on Market Street. There are about thirteen, fourteen illustrious jurors wandering Market Street that you might see this week, including some great names like Sir Norwin Foster, Walter Hood, Janette Sadik Khan from New York. They are all gonna be working and looking at the over the 180 submissions that they received to Revision Market Street to be the the exciting center that we all want it to be, that we've always just kind of had a near miss on in in recent years, and that's been particularly hard to achieve post pandemic. So they will be looking at those international submittals throughout the week, and there will be some announcements made next week on the seventeenth about I think there are several categories of winners. I know we in the city, including Rachel Tanner and Lily Langlois, who've been instrumental in helping that happen, are hoping that, we will get some actionable vision ideas out of that, at least on a scale that we can try some new ideas to to bring more life back to Market Street and give it the future it deserves. And then lastly, and this is important for you all, you recall proposition e on last year's ballot, which created the commission on commissions, among other things. They have been meeting. The task force created under Prop E has been meeting. They have been gathering data from our and other departments on all of the commissions throughout the city. They are about to release a schedule of next steps for what's happened throughout this next year. So we'll be sharing that with you, hopefully, as soon as this week. As commissioners, we wanna make sure you as a commissioner are as aware of and involved in that process as possible. So just look at that from coming from us, and, the public will be able to follow that process as well. And that's my report. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Thank you, director. Commissioner vice president Moore?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Could I ask a question? And you may not have the question because it is just an evolving piece of news. For me personally, the Justin Herman Plaza is always a dot on the I for Market Street, that is the terminus. And I read a lot of different articles in the paper, particularly as of this morning, Bianco Fountain, which is basically a big issue of discussion, would not be included while the revitalization of the plaza seemed very interesting. Can you, already say something about it, or should we hold till there is more more knowledge about it?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: I don't have a whole lot of knowledge, but I can I you know, it my understanding, particularly from my previous role at OEWD, where we we were working with Rec Park to advance the Embarcadero Plaza design, was that, you know, no action about the fountain can be made until it's until an action by the art commission is taken? So that is pending. I don't know much more than was in the article this morning as well. I think the point of that article, though, was to say that at this point in time, the vision and it it's just a vision because nothing has been adopted for Embarcadero Plaza does not include that the fountain in that vision. Now that doesn't mean that's what's going to happen, and I think the reasons given were strictly cost. The cost of replacing and repairing the fountain is greater than the cost for the vision that they're comparing sidewise moving forward. But as I understand it, those choices are still to come, and there are hard and fast restrictions to any change happening until the Art Commission acts.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I hope that we find a gentle transition to think about it in the most sensitive way, yet find something which really improves the dot on the I at the terminus of Market Street. The two things are so closely interrelated. Those will be my comment. Thank you for answering them.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: If there's nothing further for the director, we can move on to item eight, review of past events at the board of supervisors and the board of appeals. There was no historic preservation commission hearing yesterday.

[Aaron Starr (Manager of Legislative Affairs, Planning Department)]: Good afternoon, commissioners, and welcome, director Dennis Phillips. Aaron Starr, manager of legislative affairs. First up at the land use committee was an ordinance amending the priority processing program sponsored by Mary Lurie, which is part of his permit SF initiative. Commissioners, you heard this on June 26 and voted to recommend approval with a modification that the North Beach and Calle Buenque cultural districts be removed from the program. At the land use committee, several speakers from both North Beach and Calle Buentecuatro cultural districts spoke to the item continuing their campaign to have the two areas removed from the priority processing program. Supervisor Malgar spoke to the proposed amendment saying that she disagreed with the concept of exempting these two districts from the program. The program would benefit immigrant owned businesses and exempting the areas would essentially make it more difficult for these applicants to go through the process. However, she said that she spoke to both supervisors, who represent those areas, and they said they supported the removal, therefore she would support the amendment. After public comment, supervisor Chen made a motion to remove the two districts. That vote passed unanimously, And the item was then forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation. Next, the committee considered the mayor's ordinance that would expand the existing sign amnesty program, and amend the design standards for gates, railings, and grill works. This is also part of the mayor's permit SF ordinance or effort. Commissioners, you heard this item on June 26 and recommended approval. During public comment, a few speakers spoke about the need for the ordinance to lessen impacts on small businesses. There were no significant comments from the committee members, and the item was forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation. Next, the committee considers the mayor's ordinance that would amend the transparency and sign requirements and sales and service use controls in the C 3 and R C districts. This is also part of the permit SF ordinance, and you did hear this on June 26 when you recommended approval with a host of modifications. During the hearing, your proposed amendments were incorporated into the ordinance, but as they were substantive, the item was continued. And last, permit SF ordinance was the mayor's ordinance to amend the temporary temporary use controls. Like the others, you heard this on June 26 and recommended approval. During the hearing, a few speakers spoke in favor of the item, and comments of support came from the committee members. The committee then forwarded the item to the full board with a positive recommendation. Next on the docket was supervisor Engadio's ordinance for non complying, unpermitted, and accessory structures, which I believe you also heard on June 26. However, this item was continued to allow more time for proposed amendments to be drafted. And last but not least, was supervisor and Gardia's ordinance that would allow certain ADUs to be converted to condominiums. This was back at the land use committee after, several weeks. Commissioners, you heard this item on February 13 and voted to approve it with several modifications. Some of the modifications were technical in nature, and others, were to ensure that rent control provisions were preserved and tenants were protected. Supervisor Ngarrio has been working with the community and the city attorney's office for the last few months, making amendments to the ordinance that are in the spirit of the commission's recommended modifications. Several members of the public spoke asking that further amendments be made to the subdivision code to better protect existing tenants of ADUs. These amendments had in fact already been requested by supervisor Ngarrio, which the city attorney confirmed. Supervisor Melgar asked whether the proposed amend amended ordinance would succeed in accomplishing the planning commission's recommended modifications. After staff confirmed that to be the case, the amended ordinance was unanimously approved as a committee report. And then last week at the full board, the condominium conversion for accessory uses that was heard at the land use committee and senate committee report passed its first read. So this week there was no I'm sorry, I should have told you there was no land use committee this week. This is all from last. And you didn't have a hearing last week. So this week, there was no land use committee hearing, but there was a full board hearing, at which time the, condominium conversion ordinance, passed its second read And the priority processing program, the awning amnesty program, and the temporary use authorizations all passed their first read. That concludes my report. I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Good afternoon, President Tsao, commissioners. Corey Teague, zoning administrator. The, Board of Appeals did meet last night and they took action on two items of interest to the commission. First was a permit at, 1934 Jefferson Street, and this came before you as a discretionary review in January. This is a case where, a permit from 2009 authorized a roof deck with a firewall. It had actually been built out without the firewall and they kinda reconfigured the stair and landing. New owners purchased after that. And then eight years after they were there, a complaint was filed that there was this inconsistency that the roof deck structure hadn't been built as permitted. So the project went through that process. The the proposal this commission saw was simply to add a firewall, the required firewall under the building code, to that, roof deck and to the landing and stair, and make no other changes. The adjacent neighbor, opposed that and was requesting additional changes. The commission voted five two to not take Doctor and approve what was proposed. And there were a lot of conversations about fairness to the existing owners. The same neighbor also appealed the permit once it was issued and, you know, kind of, based the appeal on very similar grounds to the discretionary review. And I feel like the the board's consideration was very similar to the commission's in terms of what they considered and and they ultimately, voted unanimously to deny the appeal and allow that project to go forward. So that was good. The other was an interesting appeal that was not an appeal of a planning department or planning commission action, but it was an appeal of a, street improvement permit from DPW, but it was for a project at 555 Bryant Street that was heard as an informational item by the commission in 2021. It was, a project that was approved ministerially through the housing sustainability district in Central Selma. Several 100 dwelling units there. And that appeal, though, was interesting because it did look at how do we, as a city, coordinate between departments and the timeline of approvals relative to streetscape changes. Because there the jurisdiction request had been filed by residents of The Palms, which is across Wells Street. It's a one way alley separating them. Because they oppose the sidewalk widening and the widening and the loss of parking that was there. And so it was an interesting conversation about what is SDAT, our Streetscape Design Advisory team that is an interagency team to look at that. How does that work from a timing perspective? When can people from the public engage in that process on streetscape improvements, etcetera? Importantly, that streetscape work still requires a public hearing and approval from the Transportation Commission. So, ultimately, the the Board of Appeals found that they should not take jurisdiction and allow that process to continue forward and and see what happens, you know, through that process. But it was an interesting an interesting appeal that was not a direct appeal of our work, but obviously related. And that concludes my Board of Appeals report.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: There are no questions, commissioners. We can move on to general public comment. At this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter 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. When the number of speakers exceed the fifteen minute limit, general public comment may be moved to the end of the agenda.

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Georgia Schutisch. I'm nervous too with a new director. So but welcome to you very much, and good luck, and have fun. I'm the woman who's been talking about section three seventeen for over ten years, and I'm still here. And so what I did is I did send a letter on, July, seventh, about the exchange at the LUT between staff and, supervisor Chen. And, what I brought today for, the new director and mister Ionin and, mister Yang is three letters three documents that I submitted earlier this year about this issue of the definition of demolition. If you remember, it really kind of came to a head early in the year with two projects. And it's still an issue. And it was an issue at the LUT and it's been an issue and it's come up throughout the last ten years. So what I'm submitting today are January 22 letter to the city attorney and then a February 6 memo to the commission with planning department policy from 2003 that talks about the building department definition of demolition, which does not exist. And then a February 13 memo to the commission, which includes a note about a 2023 comment that the staff made at the HPC, which I think is really important and should be watched. And then the notes on the letter to, Mr. Ionan and the city attorney. And if you want to see it, you can. And the final thing is a timeline that started by the staff in 1988 about the whole demolition policy issue and ended in 2006. And I picked it up from 2007 to today, and there are certain, events that occurred that I think are pertinent to this issue of section three seventeen, what happened in Noe Valley, what I started to see around 2014 when I saw these major alterations that were really demolitions and everything that the city has tried to done this tried to do, excuse me, to stop that or to change that. And I think it's still an issue even though section three seventeen has been revised many times. The part of the planning code, section three seventeen b two d, which gives this body the legislative authority to adjust the demo calcs has never happened. And I think it's something that needs to be considered in light of the questions over the definition of demolition and the rezoning, particularly in the priority equity geographies. It's very important. So I'll leave it at that. I hope you get to read the letter that I sent on the July 7, and all the things are submitted. I'm giving to mister Allen you have, but he'll have it too. And that's for director Dennis Phillips. And this is my 150 words for the minutes, and this is for mister Ionin and the commission secretary for the record. And here's the one for mister Yang. Thanks a lot.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Williams.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you, miss Shudish. And this is a a topic that's come up before, and I know that it was said that we were gonna address the address this issue codifying the the demolition calcs. But I think there's a sense of urgency now, and I'm wondering if this calls for a special hearing to deal with this. As I'm just putting it out there to the commission, I know it was talked about before that this was gonna be dealt with within the framework of the up zonings, but it feels to me that there's a sense of urgency to get this taken care of. And so I just wanna throw that out there and maybe planning could have a response.

[Lydia So (President)]: And director Secree.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Sure. Thanks, commissioner. Yes. We definitely hear you on this particular topic, and I know that our framework for the family rezoning is definitely going to be introducing some legislative adjustments into this. I also know that as part of PERMA s f, we're also looking at this topic in particular. So within the next few months, you will be hearing some updates, on this topic in particular coming back before you, as we kind of lay out what the plan is.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. You okay.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: So so, I mean, are we gonna deal with this? Is this is this

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Yeah. So you're gonna be getting additional information from the staff laying out what the proposals are to address the topic.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Okay. Alright. So I'm gonna hold I'm gonna hold you to that because we've we've been we've been, you know, discussing this for a long time. And it's it's a very, you know, it's a serious topic. And we need to to to talk about it, to deliberate on it, and we need to make a decision and and, you know, take care of it. So Yeah. Anyway.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you, commissioner Williams. I'll make sure that we follow it through. Yeah. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Last call for general public comment. Seeing none, we'll go to our reasonable accommodation requester.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: No. I didn't press this. Thanks.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. In that case, commissioners, that will place us under your regular calendar For items nine a and b, for case numbers 2024Hyphen005966CUA VAR, for the property at 425 Broadway, you will consider the conditional use authorization, and the zoning administrator will consider the variance.

[Dakota Speicher (Planner, Department Staff)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Dakota Speecher, department staff. I believe the supervisor of District 3, supervisor Souders,

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: We actually just got a note that they won't be speaking.

[Dakota Speicher (Planner, Department Staff)]: Then I stand corrected. Let me adjust this. Okay. There we go. Alright. Good afternoon President Tsao, Vice President Moore, members of the commission, Dakota Speicher, department staff. The item before you today is a request for conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code sections two seventy one and three zero three to demolish the existing commercial parking structure and construct two sixty five foot tall mixed use buildings with approximately 75,000 square feet of residential use including 75 dwelling units and 8,000 square feet of ground floor retail use within the Broadway Neighborhood Commercial Zoning District, Priority Equity Geography's Special Use District, and 65 a one height and bulk district. The project site located at 425 Broadway is an l shaped lot with frontages on Broadway and Montgomery Street. A public sewer easement bisects the project site as an extension of Verdi Alley separating the two proposed buildings massing. A previous iteration of this project was approved by the planning commission on 12/16/2021 under the state density bonus lot. The project before you today has been modified in several ways which have been outlined in your packet. Most notably, the project now utilizes planning code section two zero seven c nine, commonly known as cars to casas, allowing for density to be regulated by the prescribed development standards of the Broadway NCD rather than units per lot. To satisfy the inclusionary housing requirement, the sponsor will now pay the in lieu fee rather than providing on-site affordable units. The project no longer includes office space or off street parking, and the Broadway Building has increased in height by approximately 10 feet. The building fronting Montgomery Street exceeds the maximum permitted bulk of section two seventy and does not comply with the rear yard requirements of section one thirty four. Therefore, the project is requesting a bulk exception. The project is also seeking relief from the rear yard under a rear yard modification which will be considered separately by the zoning administrator today. As part of the previous project, the sponsor attended 20 community meetings between March 2018 and December 2021. On 06/05/2024, under the current application, the sponsor hosted the required pre application meeting. 12 individuals attended including representatives from the Chinatown Community Development Center who raised light in the air concerns for the adjacent single room occupancy building located at 401 Broadway. The sponsor previously entered into a private agreement with CCDC to provide an on-site laundromat and larger light wells adjacent to the SRO Building, Both of which have been incorporated into the current project design. The department has received one letter in support of the project citing a need for additional housing within the district and two letters in opposition from the Telegraph Hill dwellers and North Beach tenants committee. They objected to the lack of on-site affordable housing and increased scale of the project and were concerned about impacts to the adjacent SRO residents. Since the packet was published, the department has received seven additional letters in support of the project including those from the North Beach Neighbors and Housing Action Coalition citing a desire for housing, ground floor retail, and activation of an underutilized site. The department has also received three additional letters in opposition citing concerns over the height and scale of the project and community outreach process. The department finds that the project is on balance, consistent with the objectives and policies of the general plan and compliant with the planning code. The project maximizes the allowable density resulting in a substantial amount of new housing which is a goal for the city. The project will also contribute to the city's affordable housing fund. The project has been designed sensitively and provides improves the quality of the site by demolishing an existing parking garage. For those reasons, the department finds the project is necessary, desirable, and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and not to be detrimental to persons or adjacent properties in the vicinity. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions and I will hand it to the sponsor team for their presentation. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Alright, sponsor. You have five minutes.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Thank you.

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Jonas, can we get the, the slides?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Sure. SFGov, can we get the computer, please?

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Thank you. Thank you, commissioners, and good afternoon. Steve Vettel on behalf of the project sponsor. As Dakota mentioned, in 2021, you approved an earlier version of this project with 42 dwelling units, 18,000 square feet of office, and ground floor retail. A year later, the Board of Supervisors passed the CARES de Casas ordinance that eliminated residential density limits on sites that contained auto oriented uses, allowing the project to add housing. The massing scale and design of the project before you is very similar to the approved 2021 design, with the addition of one story to the Broadway building still within the 65 foot height limit, and the office space has been replaced by residential space. Together, these modest changes nearly double the number of homes from 42 to 75, located in a well resourced neighborhood, consistent with the general plan housing element. The project is code compliant except for a bulk exception for the Montgomery Building and a rear yard modification. Both of these are necessitated by the sewer, by a sewer easement that cuts through the site, requiring the proposed two building configuration. Both buildings are within the 65 foot height limit. We are requesting no other waivers or exceptions. The project is sensitive to the SRO Building at 401 Broadway. In 2021, we agreed to provide a public laundromat in our building for the SRO tenants to subsidize the tenants' laundry expenses and to provide enlarged light wells adjacent to the 401 Broadway light wells. The current project incorporates those agreements as confirmed by CCDC, which represented those tenants and currently represents the tenants. The project has elected to provide over $3,800,000 in affordable housing funds to the city, enough for m for MOHCD to subsidize about 12 low income units off-site. That is over double the five affordable units proposed in 2021. We have received significant neighborhood support, including an endorsement from North Beach neighbors, several nearby residents, and the Housing Action Coalition. Let me now introduce the project architect, Ian Birchell.

[Ian Birchall (Project Architect)]: Thank you, Steve. Good morning. Excuse me. Good afternoon. I'm going to run you very quickly through the slides. I think you're familiar with the project from prior presentations, so we'll just rock and roll, please. This is indicating the massing, adjacent to the corner building, views on, Montgomery and Broadway. Next, please. Site plan indicating the, Verdi Alley, which as I said, bisects the site, with a sewer easement, creating two building massings, but it's on one site. Next, please. Section through the property is indicating the yellow as the residential uses, and the mauve purple is, retail. Next. 1st Floor plan, indicating retail facing, Broadway and Montgomery. Next, please. This is the laundry area, in the basement. Next. The yellow areas are the light wells that have been referred to. Next. View down Verdi Alley from the corner, shown a two story retail. Next, please. Rooftop terraces, and, the other building has a solar. Next. So the dark purple is the solar panels being provided for the property. Next. And, typical floor plans, should you wish to get into any detail on that? Next, please. And is that our last slide? Thank you. I apologize for being brief. I'm recovering from food poisoning. Thank you. I have any if you have any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer.

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Thank you. Let me just briefly add that we did spend a number of months and months with the planning department modifying the design for the project to both the Broadway Building and the Montgomery Building to assure the compatibility with the Jackson Square Historic District Extension. The Planning Department staff is very happy with the current design with the masonry bases of both buildings and the, and the more modern composition in the Verde Alley extension and in the upper floors of the Broadway Building. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. That concludes the project sponsor's presentation. We should take public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. Again, you need to come forward.

[Stan Hayes (Telegraph Hill Dwellers)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Stan Hayes from the Telegraph Hill Dwellers. And on behalf of THD and its hundreds of members, many hundreds, and its more than seventy years of community service, we strongly support truly affordable housing. As one of the largest potential sites for affordable housing in North Beach, we continue to believe that this site should be a 100% affordable housing, especially since it's in the priority equity geographies. This revised project proposes to change the terms of its approval in 2021. Much more to the benefit of the developer, nearly develop neither nearly doubling the in number of units from 42 to 75, increasing the height of the building by one to two stories, and eliminating all on-site parking, and the developer wants expedited permit review. For all these extra benefits, what does a developer offer us in return? To eliminate all on-site affordable housing, substituting in lieu fees that may not provide any affordable housing in the neighborhood or any affordable housing anywhere anytime soon. For decades, Broadway has been a major corridor for very low income housing with SROs on all four corners of the Montgomery Broadway Intersection, more than 250 rooms. What what better place for on-site affordable housing? If not here, where? To approve the CUA, you have to find that the project would not be, quote, detrimental to the health, safety, convenience, or general welfare of persons residing or working in the vicinity, unquote. How can you make that finding? What about the Rex Hotel SRO at 401 Broadway next door? 39 units, more than 60 tenants, poor light, minimal windows, even more air and sunlight blocked with this revised project, all in exchange for a coin laundromat? Not nearly enough. We can do better, and we should. Please do not approve this project without on-site affordable housing. Thank you.

[Bailey Douglas (Neighbor/Public commenter)]: Hi. My name is Bailey Douglas. I'm a neighbor. I've lived in San Francisco. I was born in San Francisco. I went to high school here, and I've lived in seven in San Francisco for seventeen years since I graduated from college, almost seven of them in North Beach. So I and I am currently living in North Beach, so I'm a neighbor. I walk by this site every day. Broadway Street is a tough street at any time of day, especially in the evenings. And I've been chased, like, recently down the street by people who are coming to do various various things, parking lots and, you know, theoretical affordable housing that could get passed in ten years are great, but the neighbors could use something that is really helping the community there now. 75 units is a lot of units in an area that really needs housing. You don't need parking in this neighborhood. I've lived there for seven years successfully with no car, and I know that many others would, you know, love to do that as well. This is contributing to the net affordable housing in San Francisco. And I, you know, do consider myself to be a North Beach resident, but I also consider myself to be a part of the city. And I understand that we need housing, and we need to get it through where we can and how we can. And this is a really great addition for the neighborhood. I think that having brick and mortar businesses, having more lighting, having a laundromat available in an area where you see people pushing carts of laundry all over all the time. I mean, that's, like, one of the main things I would say is, like, a strong part of my commute. It does seem like a really valuable thing. And we could wait for years and pretend that we're gonna get a 100% affordable housing. But this is a great project that we can have right now, and I really urge you to vote in favor of it.

[Marian Wallace (Public commenter)]: Hi. My name's Marian Wallace. I'm like a five decade resident of San Francisco. And I just don't think the project has to be that tall for the most part. I mean, once you start putting up a taller building, everyone else wants one. Oh, I can just go a little taller and a little taller. And before you know it, that beautiful boulevard, which connects the center of North Beach with the Embarcadero, is just like Wall Street. I mean, I saw the little peekaboo sky there in the alley. But you're covering a lot of sky. It's almost twice as big as what's there now, which are mostly three story. So can't it be scaled back? And I have to say, I do agree with the Telegraph Hill dwellers who say, why high end condos? Because I've seen them built all over the place. And no one really lives there. I mean, people buy them as investments. And then they just make money on it later. So I I basically think it should be modified smaller. And it would be great if it was the required amount of real affordable housing. Thank you.

[Chinatown Community Development Center representative]: Hi. I'm here to speak in, support of the 4 To 5 Broadway project on behalf of the Chinatown community development center. As others have already expressed, we worked with the neighboring SDR residents and the forty five Broadway project team in 2021, resulting in a community benefits agreement. We're happy to see that the light wells and public laundromat are still incorporated in the revised plans, as ventilation, light, and community serving facilities are especially important for low income senior SRO residents. We look forward to a coin operated laundromat facility in accordance with the CBA and anticipate working with the vendor and the project team to ensure that the financial endowment can be easily used by the neighboring Rex Hotel Esaara residents. And that CBA should be on file if you wanna review that. Thank you.

[Theresa Flandrick (North Beach Tenants Committee)]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. Theresa Flandrick, North Beach tenants committee. I'm also a 40 plus, resident of North Beach. I've lived and worked in North Beach. So just so you all have that background, I would like to first of all then echo, what mister Hayes had said in terms of truly affordable housing should have been the plan here. It's really sad that those six to seven units that might have been there as affordable housing, that middle income folks could not move in and cannot move in now. I want to describe our reality in this community, having lived here for this long, that we indeed have an affordable housing crisis. That is our reality. We have had so many condos that have been built, so from Broadway to Bay Street, without any any relief in sight in terms of affordable housing. So the hundreds of luxury condos that have been built, and there are many more in the pipeline, While only a few rentals have actually been continue to be built there, in fact, none are truly affordable at this time for existing residents and for future residents. At the same time, we keep losing rent controlled buildings to fires, to illegal mergers, three unit buildings turned into single family homes under the radar. This has meant for all of this means there's a decrease in housing choices for us. Throughout the city, that is an issue, but I can only speak specifically to North Beach and this project. This project eliminates choices for the many. There's zero affordable housing on-site. And, again, I also had worked with the tenants back in the early days. I've been in the building several times. I've seen what the one window per eight by 10 square room looks like. I've seen the sunlight that does come through there. I've seen I've met with the tenants as well. And I know that those elders, BIPOC, also working class adults are in this building, and their quality of life will be greatly impacted by this project. Again, I'm not against housing. It is the housing that we need that must and should be built. This project is indeed going to impact the families that currently live there and also going forward. We cannot allow the trade off of human health and safety for vistas of the bay, for the sponsor, and for only the wealthy who will be able to afford these condos.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Thank you.

[Brianna Morales (San Francisco Housing Action Coalition)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Brianna Morales with the Housing Action Coalition as a community organizer. Back in 2021, the Housing Action Coalition, along with the MB Action, launched a petition in support of this project. We had a 194 residents sign on urging the city to move it forward because they recognized, as we do now, how crucial these homes are for North Beach. And we're really thrilled to see this project become even more ambitious through the years where there was once 41 homes. We're now really excited to see 75 new homes coming to North Beach in a neighborhood that has built far too little housing over the years. At a time where it's increasingly difficult to get housing built, this project stands out as a real concrete opportunity to deliver. We had this chance in 2021 and missed it, and so I'm really here to say that we can't let it slip away again. 425 Broadway would transform an underused parking garage into something that people can actually use, like grand fair floor retail and a laundromat that the residents want and have negotiated for. And as a housing advocate, I could say that being able to contribute millions of dollars to the city's affordable housing fund does make a difference, especially at a time when building housing at all income levels is very difficult. It's probably not a secret by now that North Beach is one of my favorite neighborhoods. I've spent many nights on lumpy couches and sleeping on the floor of my friends' apartments. And, you know, we are those people who have to lug laundry across the city, but it's also great because there's farmers markets and it's lively. And I would love to be able to move into North Beach one day, Hopefully not ten years in the future, but somewhere closer to, you know, in my young life's lifetime. This project means a lot more to neighbors, local businesses, and reflects an opportunity for people to be able to grow into the neighborhood that they love and the city that they love. So I really urge you to move this project forward and help us make up for lost time. Let's bring these homes and communities to fruition. And I thank you for your time and partnership in this. Thank you.

[Andrew Diamond (Neighbor/Public commenter)]: Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Diamond and I live at 2 Roland Street, which is now also known as 2 Dirk Dirkson Place, which is the alley. I live at the back of the Alley, which is right next door to 425 Broadway. So kind of on behalf of my family, my neighbors in our building, it's a three unit building, I just wanted to come out and just say that we are all really in support of this project. You know, we've lived next door to this parking lot now. I've lived there for eighteen years. So I know this parking lot's not an asset to the community. I can tell you every story that's happened on Broadway having lived there for for so long now. And, you know, we're just really excited that this project could get built. We know it'll help improve Broadway tremendously. Broadway needs all the help it can get. You know, we love it. We've loved living there for so long. But, you know, honestly, the parking lot, a lot of stuff happens there that you wouldn't want to have happen right next door to where your, you know, wife and kids live too. And, you know, it's, it's it's really exciting to see a developer like them come in. We've they've met with all of us. They've, you know, researched everything. They've, put a lot of thought and energy into this. And, we're just hopeful that one day that parking lot will be gone and they'll be building this new building. So thank you so much.

[Samson Green (GM, Broadway Studios & Fame)]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Samson Green. I'm general manager of Broadway Studios and Fame right next door at 445 and 435 Broadway. And I just want to for my boss, who can't be here, she wants to voice her approval for the project, kind of mirroring what Mr. Andrews says as far as the improvements of the neighborhood and being a better thing than the parking lot. So I just wanted to voice the owner's approval of the immediate neighbor. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed. This matter is now before you.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Corey. Hey. Thank you. I just wanted to start out first because my role in this project is more narrow than the commission's, just looking at the proposed rear yard modification. And just to remind everyone, it's actually a lower bar than a standard variance. It's there's really only two criteria to consider here. One is whether or not the project's adding new residential uses, which it clearly is, and the project's not gonna adversely impact the mid block open space. This block doesn't really have a mid block open space. In fact, the interior courtyard that's being provided probably is gonna represent more on ground space on the block than probably exists there now. So I think and obviously, I think the design overall is a reasonable response to the sewer easement extension from from Verity Place. So I don't have any issues with the proposed rear yard modification, so I just wanna be clear about that upfront. I I did wanna ask the project sponsor one question, though, if you can elaborate a little bit. I mean, obviously, this project is fairly unique in its design and layout, and especially with the courtyard. There's been a lot of conversation around the residential, which is clearly important. But you also have to deal with this Verdi Place extension and the courtyard, and there's gonna be multiple commercial spaces fronting that courtyard, and it looks great on plan and renderings. But I didn't know if you could speak a little bit more about thoughts about how that's gonna be, you know, kind of programmed and activated and considered as like a dual space, but it's kind of open space for the residents, but also open to the public for some amount of time for actual access to those commercial spaces. So if you could just speak to that a little bit, that'd be great.

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Sure. So Steve Vettel again. The first, what, 50 or so feet of Verdi Alley is a public street and will remain a public street. It'll be landscaped and converted to a Paseo. We'll be lighting, landscaping, street furniture, be a public open space. Beyond that, through the rest of the site, it'll be gated. But the gates will be open during business hours because there's retail back there. The laundromat is back there through that private courtyard. So that the private courtyard will be both access to the to the retail and the laundromat, and it'll also be available to the residents as open space. The primary open space for the residents is a very substantial roof deck above the the Montgomery Building.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Campbell?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I lived on Montgomery for a few years as well, just north of Vallejo, and I walked by this site as well. So I, appreciate the public comment around, and the commentary around how this does nothing for the neighborhood and the city. And I walked by it and often wondered,

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: I can't

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: wait to see what this is one day. This is a fantastic infill project, and I think it's like a poster child, I imagine, for the legislation that was cars to casas. Like, this is exactly what we wanna see happen prioritizing people over cars. 75 dwelling units adds to our housing stock, and I do wanna commend the variety of the sizes of the units. We often get a lot of public comment about wanting larger units and this delivers, so thank you for that. I hear the community's concerns around really wanting to see the housing and not the in lieu fee. I agree. I think we all agree. But it meets the affordable housing requirement. And I think if we wanna see that change, we need to change it at a policy level. We don't do it on a project by project basis of how we're feeling right now. So this does add a significant amount of money to, to the coffers, which desperately need it. 3 I think 3.8 plus million dollars, which will fund significant low income rental units. I also wanna commend the project sponsor for all the community out involvement, that that was performed and the design modifications that were made and the introduction of the laundromat. I think that that, it took a lot of time and effort, and I commend you for that. And I think my only feedback kinda echoes a little bit what, what Corey was getting to, which is around the activation of the alleyway. I love our alleyways. I think this is a nice, compliment to those sort of treasures that we discover all around the city and especially in this neighborhood. I just wanna make sure it succeeds and dead end alleys, don't naturally attract pedestrians. So I I would like for the project sponsor to just, be really mindful of how we set that up for success. I think it's gonna require very curated retail offerings that are gonna draw a footfall and, very thoughtful landscaping lighting. Because at night, I think that dynamic between the private portion and the public portion are gonna get a little tricky. So, just wanna make sure you're navigating that thoughtfully and and proper signage to really get folks wanting, knowing it's there and getting them, to go. So I would make a a motion, delightfully to approve this with conditions.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I think commissioner Campbell said a lot of had a great lot of great observations about the project. I, I look at this as a fairly modest ask in terms of the change to the bulk requirements, which, as I understand it, is why we're hearing this item. It's a conditional use authorization, not for height of the project even, but for the additional bulk, which is, I believe a fairly modest adjustment to the bulk requirements as far as the Planning Commission's role in this. But I also just want to echo the comments that this project has done a lot of work with CCDC and try to find ways to better serve tenants of the surrounding buildings with the laundromat, with the endowment for payments of residents of those buildings to use the laundromat. And, I also appreciate seeing that the larger light wells, for the neighboring building have been retained, which is it is a in kind of a tight situation. This is a taller building, so I think that's really important, and I'm glad to have that in the project. I'm very excited to have such a substantial increase to housing at this vacant lot and to be taking some of those I think there were 17 parking spaces in the old project, which aren't even really necessary in this location and were surely a financial drain on the project, so maybe it's more likely to move forward now. Those you know, this is a place where we have parking maximums in place, not minimums. And there's a reason for that because we're trying to move away from, sacrificing space for people for cars, which, again, also goes well with the theme of cars to gases. And then I I agree. You know, it's it's a it's always a tough, kind of call and decision when it comes to policy around on-site affordable units versus payments to the city. And in this case, the six affordable units on-site are now going away, and we have the it's really a net increase of a little over $3,000,000 over the remnant fee that was going to be paid previously. But, you know, we can leverage the city can leverage that funding to produce potentially more affordable housing units or deeply affordable housing units. Hopefully, we can get more than the the six that were going to be in the old project. But for the most part, the project is, code compliant. The project, is just asking for a modest increase in bulk, and this has my support.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank Thank you, commissioner Braun. I have to say that, like, thank you for everyone coming out today to voice your opinion, for or also oppose this project. And I take a look at this project pretty deeply. Also, really appreciate that the project sponsor worked really closely with our communities, especially acknowledging that there is a existing affordable housing tenant across the street and worked out to allow them to use a brand new laundromat, and I heard that they're all really excited about it. And I also need to give a shout out to appreciate the, supervisor Danny Sauer's office in collaboration with the community to, continue to enable a project of this magnitude to come into on Broadway Street. There is a public comment that, she voiced out about bring more residents, will make her feel safer walking along Broadway, and I hear you. I felt the same. I really wish I can be not only needed to ask for someone to walk with me, but I can just freely walk around there. And I'm really looking forward to see these retail activating the lower, Ground Floor, landed on the, semi private courtyard or, opening in that, I think it's I believe it's, like, Montgomery Street or Broadway Street. So I do, echo all my fellow commissioner who has spoken, Commissioner Campbell and Commissioner Braun's comment. I'm not gonna repeat it, and I think they're really on point. One thing I do like to recognize the project sponsor, and I noticed that by code, you really only allow we only need to build, like, eight three bedroom units. And I also know that, being as a liaison with the mayor's office of community and housing development, I really know that that we have a lot of require or wanted to have more bigger unit more bedroom units. So I really applaud your, taking on the volunteering to add, instead of just having eight require three bedroom, but having it at 11. And some of your floor plan layout actually have that flexibility for whoever the family move in there, to have them to grow and stay in place. So with that, also really appreciate that you contribute to the city housing fund, over 3,800,000.0. We needed more of, people like you to contribute to our affordable housing fund so we can truly deliver, a potential 100% affordable housing unit in the entire San Francisco. So I am in full support of this project, and I will let the rest of my commissioner voice their opinion. I'll leave it to Commissioner Imperial.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you, president. So, in general, the idea of cars to causes is a good idea to utilize the parking lot into housing, and I support that kind of that that idea. Again, looking into where we're at and the fact that this is in a preorder equity geography, it's always best if it's the cars to cost that is used as 100% affordable housing project. I do have a question in terms of the changes of the current project. Why change the on-site to off-site? And also, what and also, please explain as well the effect of eliminating the office space. Yeah.

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Steven L again. For the office space, there there was 18,000 square feet of office space in the prior iteration. And mainly, we put that office space in there because we couldn't put housing in there. We had an absolute limit of 42 housing units because of the underlying zoning. But the 65 foot building that was all this extra space, it was limited to design professional office space, architects, engineers, interior designers. There's just not a market for that. So it became a financial burden on the project to try to figure out what to do with this 18,000 square feet of office space after you build it if you can't lease it. So once cars to Casa is passed, that space that was that was sort of, by necessity, office space, because it couldn't build housing in it, because of the density limit, we were able to eliminate all that office space 18,000 square feet and turn that all into housing. So that's really the the Carissa Casa ordinance, really allowed the project to to work where it didn't it wasn't really working before. As for the in lieu fee, it's a project sponsor's election to choose in lieu fee, on-site, or off-site. We chose on the in lieu fee, which I would, note, almost all all condominium projects, for sale projects, typically utilize the in lieu fee option, because it it works much better in a condominium project to have the units on-site, pay a fairly substantial fee to the Mayor's Office of Housing and Economic Development, which could then leverage that money, with federal and state money and we'll subsidize, we think, about 12 units off-site, even if the city subsidizes each of those units to a tune of $300,000. So that's substantially more than the five units on-site that were in the previous iteration of the project.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: So, I guess the idea is that you eliminate the office space to increase more residential units, and, you also eliminate the on-site units in order to have an off-site fee that would equivalent to 12 units? Do you again, in terms of the off-site fees, how will that impact the neighborhood?

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Well, it's it's not our decision where the city chooses to spend that money. As as you know, the mayor's office of housing typically will acquire sites, put out an RFP for nonprofits to develop the site. So we don't have the the ability to direct that money. It goes into the mayor's office of housing and economic development or mayor's office of housing and community development, Kitty, which they use to subsidize the the city the city's piece of the subsidy needed for affordable housing projects. And what what will be built with that money is is is rental projects, low income rental projects.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: So they will go to the rental or

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Yeah. Up to 60% of AMI. What had been proposed in our site in the previous was a moderate income condominiums, with a fewer amount of Phillips,

[Lydia So (President)]: you might wanna chime in? Saw that you're queuing

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: Commissioner Imperial, I just wanted to add my knowledge the department's knowledge of that. When an in lieu fee is paid, it does go to the mayor's office of housing. We don't have the ability to direct it at, you know, the speaker is correct. Primarily, that goes towards housing that is cross referenced with low income housing tax credits and other subsidies, to move forward. And it is generally produced at low income levels, rental levels for a 100% of the unit. So, the other thing I'll note, and I don't have an exact count because I've only been here a week, but there is a significant backlog and queue of land back sites that, the mayor's office of housing has that they are seeking funding for to build. Unfortunately, there's been a dearth of in lieu fees paid in the last five years. So, we are, as I understand it from the mayor's office of housing, land rich and funding poor to build those a 100% affordable projects.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Thank you. The again, Los in Lufus, as I understand it, is applied citywide to, you know, to affordable housing citywide. But the thing is that we're talking about this development in this neighborhood in priority equity geography and the impact of it in this neighborhood. So that's my point. There is no direct benefit, it will have when it comes to affordable housing in this neighborhood. And so that is something that, you know, you know, we need to think about as we are thinking about the off-site fees. And again, I've observed in the commission that many are retorting to the off-site fees. And there is a backlog, and I recognize that as well. But how it will impact that neighborhood, I think there needs to have whether that can be a legislation, a conversation on sometimes they could be earmarked on that neighborhood specifically. And for this particular project, because there is no legislation, it does not. It will not earmark for this neighborhood. So that is the kinda, like, my concern in this. And also another thing that is brought up is the quality of life to the neighboring SROs. And these neighboring SROs are already again, these are closet, if you could look into this, and how it will impact them in terms of the access to even though there is a light well, there is a light well, which is really, you know, which is actually part of design. I appreciate that as well. But the again, when we're talking about equity and how it will impact other low income community in this neighborhood, that's what equity is all about when we talk about that. So those I don't think I can fully support this project even though I appreciate the communication that or work that you have done with other community as well. And I think the other communities are trying to the best that they can as well to get something out of it, but this is overall not in the full benefit of the neighborhood. So that's where I'm at.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner vice president Moore.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I believe that there is a shared sense from all of us that the on-site affordable is being taken away. But I do believe that on the positive side, in the absence of a policy which helps us direct affordable housing not to be moved or in lieu feed, this is a step in the right direction relative to an infill project which delivers more units before because it does not barge ahead and build an office use that is really highly speculative and most likely unrealistic in that area. I speak for myself. I don't think I would take office in this particular block for the professions that are supposed to be located there. That said, we are gaining a substantial larger amount of housing. And I do believe that the Aliyah, unless I misunderstand mister Vettel, is a public courtyard and a public right of way. That is not being taken away. Is that correct, mister Vettel?

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: The eastern half of the of the very place is a public alley and that will remain a public alley. The western half is private property, part of our property, but with the sewer easement underlying it. So

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: The alley itself will be

[Steven Vettel (Sponsor Counsel)]: Maintained.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Maintained. It will be actually a public alley in which people can have a bench and sit and and and enjoy a quiet outdoor space, that is not as accessorized perhaps as a courtyard, but isn't a courtyard. It's an alley. So I believe that there is something gained on that particular score as well. The light wells, I think, were addressed in the previous situation of the project, and we all worked very hard on trying to really make the light wells better and bring more light into the units. And I think that still maintains and is thoughtfully executed in comparison to the previous laundry, which is indeed a major community benefit given that this area will be denser, I think the laundry is better designed and better located than it was before. So it was kind of like going in, what are we losing, what we are gaining? I think we're gaining something, and what we're losing is overall a lack of policy that we have not been able to push successfully about what we do with on-site affordable. And I think that challenge will remain and perhaps even get larger as we're moving into the next few months talking about family housing and up zoning. I believe that the project has is not diminished because it gains a floor away from the public frontages of Broadway, and I am in support of the project other than asking all of us to push the policy on in lieu fees at on-site affordable. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Williams?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I appreciate everything that's been said. I mean, I I I like the idea of of the parking lot being turned into housing. What's troubling to me is the type of housing. The these are these are, you know, these are luxury condos, and they're not gonna be affordable to working class people. So let's just say what it is. Having said that, there's the SROs that are right next to it. There's a there's a real disparity if you if you really wanna look at where we're at in the city. We have eight by 10 we have families living in one room, SROs, sharing bathrooms, kitchens. Those those SROs are I I would I I would like everyone, to to visit an SRO. It's it's not a a nice convenient place to live. It's a very hard place to live. Right next door, we're gonna have these beautiful luxury condos. And it's just the contrast, I think, it's worth noting. It's like this is where we're at in the city. We're failing drastically on producing our affordable housing. And it's going to continue like this. And so I don't have a problem with the building itself, but it's it's not the building. It's who's gonna live there and how it's gonna impact the rest of the the community. Again, it's been mentioned this is this is a a priority equity geography, which means that there's special considerations for this area because of the potential of displacement of low income residents getting displaced. I grew up in the Mission. I could tell you I had a firsthand seat and seen what happened to to that neighborhood. And the same thing is gonna happen here. And so and I I wanna I wanna read something that a letter, because I think that this letter kinda illustrates a whole different, way to look at at this project, and I think it's it's important for us to consider. So it says, dear planning commissioners, I have many concerns about the project, which has changed greatly from the initial plans back in 2021, now with the loss of on-site affordable housing units for middle income families and an increase in height and mass, zero inclusionary affordable housing in a neighborhood that desperately needs affordable housing for our essential workers and families, and a neighborhood that has led an an ordinary large number of condos built and hundreds more in the pipeline. Additionally, 75% of the units proposed in the project will not be family housing. This project should have affordable housing built now, not ten years down the road. The ratio of mixed units should be closer to a fiftyfifty ratio to offer real housing choices. Equally concerning is the impact this project will have on the existing 68 residents in the adjacent SRO Building. This, with this L shaped project surrounding it on the west side and rear side and rear must be taken seriously. The fact that this will impact not only the current residents but also future residents at a site located within the PEG District. Let me tell you about who lives here and what the inside of the building looks like. 68 people in 39 rooms. Each room is eight by 10 square feet. I have been in the SRO Building several times to meet with some of the 68 tenants who are extremely low income seniors, families, majority monolingual Chinese, Latino, and other people of color. Initially, I met with these tenants around issues of food insecurity and rent relief during COVID. And later, after learning of the earlier project, to assist in getting the sponsor to finally present their plan in languages accessible to all residents. The SRO units facing Broadway have one window. However, opening them to noise and pollution is not an option, so they depend on the flow of air and sunlight coming from the open hallway windows that face the current rear open space. The value of cross ventilation air and sunlight for their health during COVID while shelter sheltering in place cannot be underestimated. The bright sunlight that comes through windows facing south at the rear of the building and from the west side, which lights along hallways, the staircases bring in light, air, and warmth to otherwise dark and dank building. Choking off this light and air by the mass height of the proposed development will cause harm to the health and well-being of this very vulnerable population. This site, this SRO, is in a priority equity geographies SUD, with a tenant population for whom this SUD was actually designed to protect today and long into the future. I do not do not waive their rights to have the same health and safety standards we currently enjoy. The current project eliminates six plus incur inclusionary affordable housing units being built now and in our community eliminates a housing choice for middle income earners. I'll stop there, but I've been on this commission now for a year, over a year, and we've passed thousands of units of market rate housing. I'm getting really concerned with the lack of the urgency around affordable housing. There's a mandate that the state's requiring us to meet. We we failed in our last round, the last go round, for our housing element, only reaching 35% of the affordable housing. We've overbuilt, market rate housing by 170%. This is this is, you know, this is serious. And I don't I don't see any sense of urgency, on, you know, within within the lawmakers, within, the the the planning, department, or or this commission. And so I want to raise the alarms because we're entering into a huge change in our zoning in San Francisco. And if we don't have a real serious way to fund affordable housing, all we're going to be left with is a bunch of housing that low income people can't afford. And, and so I'll leave it there. I, unfortunately, can't support this this project as it stands. And I hope that we all, you know, think about what it means, not to have affordable housing built and to be continuing to approve these projects that are basically luxury condominiums for rich folks. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I wanna echo the perspective that we need to continue and expand the full court press toward resources to produce affordable housing or other mechanisms for producing affordable housing. The one bright spot I do want to point out is that according to the department's, housing inventory report for last year, we produced over 1,100 units of affordable units and six twenty one market rate units. So I mean, in some ways, this just speaks to the boob and bust cycle of market rate housing. So point is definitely taken. The more we're approving market rate projects, once development conditions do turn around, we would like to see a bigger surge of the market rate housing development. So I fully appreciate and understand that. And for the time being, ironically, in the softer development market, we're at 9% progress for the current housing needs allocation cycle, 2023 to 2030 for low income and very low income housing production, which matches that for above moderate income. However, again, I wanna acknowledge this is this is this moment in time when not a lot of market rate housing is moving forward. And so we do need to keep on pushing forward, as commissioner Williams says, on tools and mechanisms, for producing more affordable housing in the city. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: I really appreciate you. Commissioner Braun brought out the facts and data. You know the best. Commissioner McGarry?

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: I wanna see everything that's built a 100% affordable, but it's gotta be paid for one way or another. And it's my understanding after little under a year on this commission that it's projects like this and this 3,800,000.0 that is actually what pays for a 100% for affordable going forward. The 3,800,000.0 multiplied by 2,000,000 here, it it's 1,000,000 there, 6,000,000 here. It's all leveraged to build affordable housing. So it I would like for an explanation of, on the record of where this 3,800,000.0 goes. It goes into the mayor's office of housing fund, but that fund, to my understanding, is probably a little less than what this is right now, the balance on that. And there's no leverage if there's no money in that fund, there is no leverage to buy up a land bank that can be future that can be used in the future to build a 100% affordable. I have to look at this project that the glass is half full. You know, basically, there is 75 units here. The neighborhood in general, the people who live there are in favor of this. It is a parking lot. It's been a parking lot for years. I've walked by this. It's not the best part. I've parked in this parking lot, not the best parking lot in the world, and I wouldn't want to live there and be parking there after 06:00 at night, at any time of the year. So it will clean up a whole corner from that point of view, but I'd still like to have it on the record where that 3.8 or how that 3,800,000.0 will be used going forward.

[Lydia So (President)]: Director Phillips, you might wanna reiterate something that you mentioned a little bit earlier.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: Well, maybe just to respond to commissioner Gary too, we're happy to come back, with more information at a future date on the inclusionary housing program, how those fees work, what the sites are and the projects ahead of MOCD and where those fees will be spent. Perhaps some of them even in this neighborhood, I don't actually know. So happy to come back to you with that information at a later time.

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: Great. And I do believe there's can legally, we can't mandate somebody, a developer, to put in these five, six, or eight affordable housing units. Is that correct?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Director of Planning)]: That is correct, unless it is through a legal agreement. It has been done in in development agreements in the past. I I will note, Commissioner McGarry, to one of one of the reasons, that that has been put in place, that we cannot direct fees, is, I think, referencing a comment made by one of our commenters here today about being a resident of a neighborhood, but also a resident of the city. When we and in the past, having worked on DA projects in my former life, when we did dedicate a fee, that means another project that is ready to go today and waiting for fees has to wait longer as that fee holds in the neighborhood that it's dedicated for to accumulate the necessary funds to move forward. So there's always trade offs. You know, there's certainly a need for, community benefits within the community that the project is happening, but there's a trade off citywide and, frankly, a longer lead time towards any affordable housing units when we're precious about exactly where it goes.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Commissioners, if there's no further deliberation, there is a motion that has been seconded to approve this matter with conditions on that motion. Commissioner Campbell?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Nay. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? No. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And commission president Soh?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes five to two with commissioners Williams and Imperial voting against. Zoning administrator would say you?

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: I will close the public hearing and intend to grant the rear yard modification with the standard conditions.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. Commissioners, that will place us on items 10 for case numbers 2024Hyphen000343CUA VAR for the property at 70 Hancock Street. Again, you will consider the conditional use authorization, and the zoning administrator will consider the request for variance.

[Michelle Taylor (Planner, Department Staff)]: Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Michelle Taylor, department staff. The item before you is a request for a conditional use authorization for the property at 70 Hancock Street for the legalization of the demolition and reconstruction of a two story residential building at the rear of the property. 70 Hancock Street is a property that contains two residential buildings. At the front is a three story building with three dwelling units, and at the rear is a two story building with one unit on the 2nd Floor and storage on the 1st Floor. The project site is located within an RH3 zoning district and a 40x height in bulk district. The project requires a conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code sections two zero nine point one, three zero three, and three seventeen to legalize the unpermitted demolition and reconstruction of the rear two story building. The project scope would reconstruct the rear residential building in the exact location, footprint, roof form, and height of the original building with alterations to the exterior cladding and windows. The project would also restore the original division of space with the accessory storage space on the 1st Floor and residential unit on the 2nd Floor. The project also seeks variances for rear yard open space and exposure to reconstruct the residential cottage within the required rear yard of the subject property. Some background on this project. The rear building was a legal non complying two story building with one residential unit. Records indicate that the building was likely constructed as a stable when the property was developed in 1890 and by the nineteen forties had been converted into a legal residential unit. More recently, in February 2023, the city issued a building permit for interior improvements and modifications to exterior doors and windows. In July 2023, building department and planning department staff conducted a site visit and found that the rear building had been fully demolished and replaced with a new building. The new building had a slightly larger footprint than the original building and a flat roof rather than the original sloped roof. The proposed project before you would legalize the demolition of the building and reconstruct the building to match the exact footprint height, location, and sloped roof form of the original building. The department has received letters from seven individuals expressing opposition to the project and one letter in support of the project. Opposition letters raised concerns about the density of the site and the effects of on street parking to the neighborhood. Letters of opposition also expressed frustration with work being performed without building permits. And many of the letters also commented on the bulk and massing of the reconstructed building, particularly with the flat roof rather than the original sloped roof. There have also been concerns with the accuracy of the plans, particularly related to the overall height of the building, both as it stands today and as proposed. On the topic, the department has researched available records and previous drawings and have not identified any discrepancies with the height of the original building and the proposed reconstructed building. The department finds that the project is on balance, consistent with the objectives and policies of the general plan. Although it involved an unpermitted residential demolition, the project restores the rear dwelling unit to the same footprint height location as it existed before the demolition. And the project preserves the existing dwelling count at the site and would not result in the loss of any dwelling units. The department also finds that the project to be necessary, desirable, and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and not to be detrimental to persons or adjacent properties in the vicinity. Therefore, the department supports the proposed project and recommends approval with conditions. This concludes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions. I'll now turn it over to the project team. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

[Tara Sullivan (Applicant Representative)]: And if I can have that over

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: here as well.

[Tara Sullivan (Applicant Representative)]: Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Tara Sullivan here on behalf of the property owner. As Michelle mentioned, the item before you today is for 70 Hancock Street, located on the north side of the street between Sanchez And Church Streets in the Castro neighborhood, approximately a block from Dolores Park. The property consists of two buildings containing four residential units. At the front of the property, there's a three family residential building. And there is a one a two story, one unit residential building that's fully within the rear yard at the back. There is an 18 foot, eight inch courtyard between the two buildings. The subject of this application is regarding the rear building, which was illegally demolished during its renovation in 2023. The approval today is part of the abatement efforts to legalize the reconstruction of the residential building. The project is also seeking variances in conjunction with the CUA. In 2022, the owner undertook a renovation project to seismically upgrade and approve the building and the residential unit. It was discovered that during the original building's foundation was not structurally sound. The rear of this lot slopes downhill, as you can see in this photo of the original structure. And when it was constructed over one hundred years ago, apparently as a stable, members of the building were simply placed into the ground. There was no concrete or stone footings or any other type of foundation installed.

[Lydia So (President)]: Here's some pictures showing.

[Tara Sullivan (Applicant Representative)]: It became very apparent that a new wholesale foundation was needed. The owner obtained permits to do the foundation work in 2022. A second building permit was issued in 2023, as mentioned, for the renovation of the residential unit upstairs. However, at some point during construction, the upper portion of this building was demolished with the intent of replacing everything with newer, more structurally sound materials. The owner was not aware of what was going on and did not seek additional authorization from the city. As such, that demolition was done without the permits, and the reconstruction was underway when the enforcement actions were begun in 2023 and the permits were suspended. Since then, the owner has been working with the property with the planning department. The project's proposing to reconstruct the two story residential building. The new building's gonna be identical in shape and in size as the prior nonconforming building. It's gonna feature the 11 inch overhang on the 2nd Floor and the gabled roof. It will contain an upgraded residential unit on the 2nd Floor with the Ground Floor being readied for an ADU that will be applied for post CUA approval. The project offers numerous benefits and improvements that weren't granting the conditional use. It allows for the property to maintain the original unit count. It will enable the rear building to be structurally and mechanically upgraded featuring new up to date features and appliances and will greatly improve the quality of life for future tenants. It's going to retain the rent controlled unit. The unit on the 2nd Floor was rent controlled. It is currently subject to rent controlled and it will be replaced with a rent controlled unit. The project once completed, we'll convert the Ground Floor to an ADU, which will bring an additional unit to this property. The project will correct the former structural issues by upgrading the property to a safe and well maintained condition. And lastly, the project conserves neighborhood character in that it does not alter the street facing conditions. It will reconstruct the rear building, which is in keeping with the development pattern on the block. The new building is again, going to be in the same condition, same location, same size, and have the same character as the previous building. For these reasons, we respectfully ask that you approve the project. And, as Michelle mentioned, we understand that there's some questions regarding the height and how it was determined. So I'd like to just quickly pass it over to Daniel Paris, the architect who can go through how he came up with the height. Thank you.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Thank you.

[Stan Hayes (Telegraph Hill Dwellers)]: Hi,

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: commissioners. My name is Dan Daniel Paris. I'm the project architect. I'd like to address the question of the building height. This is originally an interior renovation. We started with an as built file for the interiors, which was accurate, But there were no dimensions for the roof since there wasn't any proposed change to the volume of the cottage. Once the enforcement action was issued, we needed to recreate the original roof. We were able to determine the height of the 2nd Floor ceiling from the patio based on the interior's file. The interior finished ceilings and floor assembly give an accurate measurement of 17 foot three inches from the patio to the ceiling. The depth of the eave construction, including ceiling, rafters, joists, and sheathing, was estimated to be 12 inches as you'll see there. This gives the assumed eave height of 18 foot three inches, which you see in this submittal. From the satellite image here, the roof had an asymmetrical peak. We assumed a pretty low slope of three and twelve, which resulted in a roof peak four feet above the eave. After review, planning has requested we replace the original roof as you see in the current submittal. Since this has become a contested issue and since these are estimates, the owner is willing to replace the pitched roof with a completely flat roof as represented by the dashed lines. This could, if desired, this could provide the same interior height and reduce the impact of any roof.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: That is your Thank you. Thank you. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. You need to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and this matter is now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Wondering if the architect if you wouldn't mind coming up to clarify some things about the this question about the roof. Sure. So what I'm a little confused about is in sheet 8,303 of the packet, there are cross sections of the building. I may not be using my terminology. I'm not an architect person. But there are cross sections of the building. It's original as built and proposed section. That's showing the ceiling heights as built of the second level as being nine foot two. And then with the modification of the sloped roof restored, the ceiling height of the second level is eight foot nine. And then what you're showing here is eight foot six for the original ceiling height. The floor the floor levels

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: have changed with the existing construction. So the original construction had the eight foot six, eight foot three that's indicated here. With the new construction that was created on-site after we obtained the interiors permit, the floors were changed. So the interior the ceilings the ceiling obviously changed for that new roof, and the floor the both the floor and the the 2nd Floor and the 1st Floor changed. So those are at different levels right now. The existing construction is different than the original construction.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: I see.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Okay. That's what

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: you're seeing there.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Walk me through that.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: I I have a question about the this proposal to potentially use a flat roof.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: It sounds like the proposal is to use a to maybe use a flat roof instead of the eave roof, but then reduce the height of the flat roof? Because the complaint is that there's currently a flat roof that's taller because it's not Currently,

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: it's a flat roof that's taller. So we would demolish the existing flat roof that was built, a noncompliant flat roof, and build a flat roof with this same eave and ceiling condition. And as you could see the, oh, can we see the slides? So keeping the existing ceiling height, which is the black line, and putting in a flat roof, which you see as the red dashed line, it'd be far far less impact than recreating a pitched roof. It's actually simpler construction also. And in fact, he could the owner could possibly reuse the framing that's out there, just to set it down at a lower level.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: But it okay. So this would involve, however, reducing the height of Oh, yeah.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: We we

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: have to rebuild. The entire front of the building has to be rebuilt because the existing building is larger than what what was original. So we're already pushing back and redoing the foundations at the front of the property. Not the front of the property, but the front of the cottage. So that's being rebuilt, which means the roof has to be rebuilt. This is all it's all getting redone.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Okay.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: We cannot salvage very much of what's out there right now.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for that explanation.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Sure. I appreciate

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: it. You know, despite that explanation, to be honest, I I I was well, I'll just say I mean, generally, I was prepared to approve the project with the proposed sloped roof. I'd be curious if there are happen to be any other opinions about the idea of further reducing the sort of height impact of the of the building by flattening the roof side. I don't wanna make a motion about this right now. But I I will say, broadly speaking, I I do support this. I hope that this is sort of a yet another lesson to somebody that it's probably easier just to get permits for doing things rather than having to go through this rigmarole to come back here. And so hopefully, folks will do this prop properly. You know, to me, this basically replaces the original unit in kind with a slightly more functional unit. There are once all the changes are made, that shouldn't result in any exterior changes really to the property. I know there are some objections to the increased density. I mean, somewhere about this being a third unit on the property, but that serves a nonconforming existing condition. There are other objections about the increased density from the fourth unit, which I believe is a state ADU. So it's not under our purview. And I'm generally, you know, that space in the lower level is not functional unless you put, you know there's a great place to put a housing unit in my opinion. So this does this does have my support. But, again, I am curious to hear if I'm missing anything when it comes to the the slope versus flat roof issue.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you, commissioner Braun. And may I have a zoning administrator for a t?

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Thank you. I do just want to clarify that the handout that was provided with the dash red line for the flat roof, that is a a new and different proposal than what's been proposed to us. Because in the past, there was a flat roof versus slope, but it was the flat roof as it's been built.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: And this

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Proposal was,

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: like, a very we proposed just to keep the existing flat roof because it's at the average of approximately the average of the original slope roof. This is, take it all down to the Gotcha. Original eave elevation and just make a flat roof there. Just build a flat roof. So lower than the original.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: So it's kind of like the the second flat roof option.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Exactly. This is a new flat roof option. Flat roof. Okay. Reduced impact rather than

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: I just wanna make sure we were I was on the same page

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Yeah.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Yeah. That's correct.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: But then that's not as you you provided these extra handouts. That's not what's provided on the actual plan.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: No. This was just something we came up with about four days ago. We asked Michelle, and Michelle said that's up to you. You're you're

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: on your own.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: I figured it too.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Okay. Thank you. I just wanna be clear about that. Sure. I mean, I'm generally I think I'm in a similar place as commissioner Braun on on the variance issue. Obviously, this is an unfortunate situation where it was an existing building that went too far with with the work that was done. This is not, a new building, whole cloth that was built without without permits. And so maintaining a building that can preserve the unit that was there, I think, is important. I do think that this new proposal, which will actually result in a less impactful building than was there before in terms of reducing the height, is helpful, especially considering this I mean, the buildings there is is somewhat larger than typical rear yard structures, especially with the slope in the rear. So I think any effort to try to accommodate that issue by reducing the height, is generally helpful and makes it easier to support. So I think especially with this the new lower flat roof option that's been presented at the hearing, I'm I'm more supportive of the variance in that scenario.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you for your, perspective, mister Tee. Commissioner Imperial?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I have a question for the project sponsor. It looks like there's still, tenants existing tenants in the unit. Can you provide some information around that? What will happen? Yeah. Mhmm.

[Joseph Peritz (Property Owner)]: Hi. I'm the owner of the Sir,

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: you need to speak in the microphone.

[Joseph Peritz (Property Owner)]: I'm sorry? Big closing. My name,

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: sorry. Yeah. You go

[Lydia So (President)]: to speak to the microphone so I

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: can remind you. Sure.

[Joseph Peritz (Property Owner)]: Like this? Okay. My name is Joseph Peritz. I'm the owner of the building. The build the property, there's a front building that has three units. One large unit at the bottom and two units at the top. Those are occupied unit. It's all rent controlled. There's the back here the back building had one tenant. That tenant moved out in 2021, and this is how we came to be here four years later. So there are existing tenants. They live there, you know.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: And will they be affected of the the changes?

[Joseph Peritz (Property Owner)]: No. I mean, affected, yes. They'll have a nicer backyard and nicer I'm gonna clean out the garage, but that's the impact on them. No other impact. Okay.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you. That's all.

[Joseph Peritz (Property Owner)]: Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Campbell?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: I also support this project kind of, like, writing a messy wrong here. It's great to get the insight about the height. I don't know if I had a strong opinion, but knowing from, like, a zoning administrator's perspective, and it sounds like that would be gentler on the neighborhood and the neighbors. So in support of that kind of late breaking change. My question is really maybe for my education and the public's education around the you know, because we've increased the penalties and fines centered around work illegal work like this, and it's significant maybe just worth noting for the public's awareness that it's a thousand dollars a day fine and up to $250,000 one time penalty. And this project just happened to kinda thread the needle timing wise as to, like, when the permit was pulled and then when that ordinance was initiated. And I'm, I know there was a determination made as to, that the violation occurred likely before we initiated the ordinance. I'm just kind of curious, like, is it when the permit's pulled? Is it when the demolition occurs? Can we talk a little bit about that?

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Sure. Sure. Happy to. So as some of you may recall, two years ago, there was an ordinance proposed to kind of modify our enforcement program. And it did a number of things. One, it raised the, maximum daily penalty from $2.50 a day up to a thousand dollars a day. So that's kind of across the board. But it also created these two new purely punitive fees. Right? They're intended to be punitive and also a disincentive for certain types of violations. One of them were was dwelling unit removal. The nuance you're referencing is that those provisions only apply to violations that occurred after the effective date. So we would have to be able to positively determine that the actual work, that represents the violation occurred after the effective date. So if we can't

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Got it.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: You know, the level of information we have here suggests that it was a little bit before that, and we we definitely don't have any documentation to confirm that it happened after that effective date. So that's why it's it's important to have that information and be clear because as more of these kind of projects start coming before you, there may be projects that do have that are triggering

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Mhmm.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: These potential penalties. But this is one that that technically was not eligible for it.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: That's all my comments. Thanks.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I just mostly wanna correct something I said earlier, first of all, which was, that they're I've got my unit counts wrong. There's three as was just stated, the product sponsor, three units in the front building. This is the fourth unit in the rear, and then there's a fifth unit proposed as a state ADU, which is the one that's not under our purview. I I'm actually comfortable making a motion to approve with the modification for the lowered flat roof that has been proposed by the project sponsor, and that would be, at a height lower than the original top of the peaked roof. Second.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Commissioner, if I may, you might wanna just clarify the actual dimension just for clarity sake. Right now on the plans that they provided, it's 18 feet three inches.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I am what what is the as built condition for the height of the flat roof? As

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: built for the height of the flat roof.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Well, as built would be Can

[Lydia So (President)]: you just repeat what you said in front into the microphone, please?

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Sure. The as built condition for the existing flat roof, we have the parapet at 20 foot three inches and the roof at 19 foot nine and a half inches. So that's the existing built condition. We're proposing,

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: if we go with the flat roof option, it would be, you know, we didn't put an exact dimension on it because it needs

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: a little bit more framing, about four more inches for, slope for waterproofing. So we need 16 inches of framing plus a six inch parapet, on top of the ceiling height. So I'm sorry to do this here. I should have had this in here. So the 17 foot three would be add 16 plus six, which would be in my head here. 24 plus 24 plus the 17 foot three would be 19 foot three as opposed to the existing flat roof is where I said 20 foot nine 20

[Lydia So (President)]: Do do you need to do a little math just to make sure? Because we're gonna read it into dimension that you will be having

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: I'm confident of that. The 24. You did the math for me, so I'm good. The 24 works. 24 on top of the 17 foot three is correct.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Okay.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Okay. So you're seventeen foot three plus Just

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: to Okay. Just to make sure we're clear, I might have staff come up and clarify

[Samson Green (GM, Broadway Studios & Fame)]: the dimension because we need to set an absolute dimension based on what you gave to us has 18 foot three as the dimension.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Conditions. That's the existing eave. The roof framing is, indicated here as 16 inch plus the six inch parapet above the ceiling.

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Okay. I just wanna make sure that that our staff can implement the commission's instructions. If it's

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: easier, I can work it out with Michelle after if it's I mean, I don't

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: know if you

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: need an exact number now.

[Lydia So (President)]: We gotta that's why I'm asking, do you need a little time? Because we will be reading into our motion to to your project

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: I'm confident

[Lydia So (President)]: with this condition. So you're gonna have to figure out right, like, right now, not later afterwards.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: I'm not sure. It's up to you. Whatever you're comfortable.

[Michelle Taylor (Planner, Department Staff)]: Steph, this is the first time I'm seeing this. So what what height did you say would end

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: up being?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Four

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: inches on top of the

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Inches, you're saying.

[Michelle Taylor (Planner, Department Staff)]: What would be the total height from grade?

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Nineteen foot three from the patio. And this is nineteen foot three. And the existing Building 8 is 20 or 19 foot nine and a half, plus the parapet, which is 20 foot three. If you need more time, we can take more time. I don't

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: If I could, commissioner Braun, is your if if I can just understand, is your kind of goal here to land on the the maximum height that's gonna be permitted by this approval? I mean Yeah. Yes. Right. Because, I mean, the outcome we're trying to get is what they've shown here. Right? Which is but we don't have this incorporated in the actual plans that we have. Right. So we need to Yes. We would need to clarify that in a condition of approval, essentially. Exactly. A condition that the the reconstructed building have a flat roof with a measured height from the interior courtyard of no more than eighteen three 18 feet three inches. I mean, that's what's being shown here. I think we're all agreeing to

[Lydia So (President)]: Do do you need a do we need to take, like, a three minute recess just so that

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: the project sponsor can figure it out? I think that's pretty straightforward from I mean, that's the outcome. I think if we don't look at what's kind of existing there on the property now, we just look at what's kind of proposed. And if we're using this handout, and happy to have the project sponsor confirmed, but it my understanding of what's being proposed and that we are comfortable with is, a reconstructed building with a flat roof of eight, with a height of 18 feet three inches as measured from the interior courtyard.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Yes. I mean, everything that's shown on the plans that were just handed to us certainly looks like that's where the roof is.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Right.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: And so it might be a parapet a little bit above that, but,

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: I mean, that's Yeah.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: I think we could I mean, I think that could clearly be the motion, you know, with the condition.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner vice president Moore would like to comment on that.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Please do.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I heard the architect, though, say nineteen foot three because he was calculating the roof height over the eighth.

[Lydia So (President)]: You you really need to clarify what you really want here. I'm willing to take a five minute recess so you can figure it out. Okay.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: So 17 foot three seventeen foot three is a measurement to the ceiling.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Mhmm. Right.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: That's based on those original asbelts we had for the interiors. We need 16 inches for flat roof framing as opposed to, this is showing the eave, which existing eave, which was 18 foot three. So 16 inches for framing and slope for waterproofing would be, that would be your 17 foot three plus 16 would be anybody?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Eighteen seven inches. Four.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Eighteen four to the roof. Alright. And then we need six a six inch parapet above that. So the parapet is actually technically not considered measured as a roof. But just to tell you, we do need a six inch parapet above that. So that's essentially 24 inches above the 17 foot three, which would be 19 foot three inches. That's right. So to the top of the parapet from the patio is 19 foot three.

[Lydia So (President)]: That's like an

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: And to the roof, it's 18 foot.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Okay. So that's what you're comfortable with. Okay. Nineteen foot three.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Is it higher than

[Ian Birchall (Project Architect)]: that? Higher

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: than that.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I'll give you

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: a second metric.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Eighteen four to the roof.

[Theresa Flandrick (North Beach Tenants Committee)]: No. 18

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Good afternoon. 18 17 feet three inches plus 16 inches is 18 feet seven inches.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Okay. So that's that's the Eighteen seven.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Yes. To the roof.

[Lydia So (President)]: And then you have to add six inches

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: on it. Inch parapets above that.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Inches. Gets us to Nineteen one.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Nineteen one.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: That's not too

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: big. But I think

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Right. We don't we don't include parapets in the Yeah. Measurement. Yeah. We don't

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: typically, but

[Lydia So (President)]: Eighteen seven.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: It impacts the

[Lydia So (President)]: mass. Inches is it? Okay. Right.

[Daniel Paris (Project Architect)]: Eighteen seven to the roof.

[Lydia So (President)]: To the yeah. To your high point of the top of your roof. Yes. Yeah. Awesome. So the motion

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: one second.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Brother. Okay. So Make a motion to approve with the modification of a of a flat roof that is 18 feet seven inches at the top of the roof?

[Rich Sucré (Deputy Director of Current Planning)]: Yes. The finished finished roof.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yeah. Second. I second it. Commissioner vice president Moore, you have further comments.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Very good, commissioners. If there's no further deliberation, there's a motion that has been seconded to approve with approve with conditions as modified with a flat roof, no higher than 18 feet seven inches. On that motion, Commissioner Campbell?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Eighteen seven. Right?

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: Alright. Okay.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: 18 feet seven inches.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yes.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Yep. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: And commission president so?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved. Commissioners, that motion passes unanimously seven to zero.

[Corey Teague (Zoning Administrator)]: Jonas, I'll also close the public hearing for the variance intended grant with the same roof condition. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, zoning administrator. With that, commissioners, we can move on to item 11 for case number 2024Hyphen005943 c, wait, 61 Through 61 A, Coleridge Street, conditional use authorization.

[Maggie Lausch (Planner, Department Staff)]: Good afternoon, commission presidents, so and commissioners. I'm Maggie Lausch, planning department staff, presenting a request for conditional use authorization pursuant to planning code sections three zero three and three seventeen to allow a residential merger in an RH2 zoning district in the Bernal Heights Special use district at 61 To 61A Coleridge Street. The project would legalize the merger of the two flats in the existing building and would replace the merged away unit in an addition above an existing detached garage on the property. The building has been in use as a single family dwelling since approximately 2002, 2003 when the prior owners merged the units without the required planning approval. The current owners purchased the property in 2024 and have worked diligently with the department to abate the violation since. The project proposes legalizing the merger to create a three bedroom dwelling approximately 1,600 square feet where before or sixteen fifty square feet where before there were two one bedroom flats about eight ninety and seven sixty square feet each. A narrow three story addition would replace the patio atop the detached garage that's currently there to contain the replaced dwelling. It'd be a one bedroom unit about seven seventy square feet. Since the staff report was published, the department heard additional comments from the tenant in the adjacent property directly adjacent to that patio, expressing concerns about noise and dust during construction, but not opposed to the project on the whole. The department finds that on balance, the project's consistent with the policies of the general plan. It restores the missing dwelling unit to the lot and introduces a new unit typology to the property, supporting family size housing and creating an opportunity for more mixed income housing in an established and amenity rich neighborhood. The project accomplishes this while retaining the existing sound structure and gracefully situating the new dwelling so that it is in keeping with the pattern and scale of development in the vicinity. The project meets all the requirements of the planning code, the residential design guidelines, and the Bernal Heights Northwest design guidelines. The department finds the project to be necessary, desirable, and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and not to be detrimental to any persons or properties, in the vicinity. Therefore, we are recommending approval. This concludes my presentation. I'm here if you have any questions, and I will hand over to the sponsor team.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: I have some

[Lydia So (President)]: this is the presentation and some letters.

[Susanna Douglas (Project Architect)]: Good afternoon. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Susanna Douglas. I'm the architect. Thank you, Maggie, and thank you commission for hearing our case today. This project seeks to satisfy the notice of enforcement by restoring a one bedroom unit to, lost to merger approximately twenty years ago, department prior owners merged two one bedroom flats without approval from planning. We are proposing to legalize the as built merge condition in the existing building, which currently has three bedrooms, and to provide an additional one bedroom replacement unit above the adjacent lower garage, shown to the left of the existing home in the photo. And I'd like to introduce one of the owners, Brandon Perkovich, who will provide his perspective, and then he'll come in and talk about the design.

[Brandon Perkovich (Property Owner)]: Hi, commission. Thanks so much. I'm Brandon Perkovich. I'm one of the owners along with my husband, John Ristefsky, who are here. We bought the property in early twenty four knowing about the enforcement issue and fully aware that we would have to act upon it. We've lived here for a long time and understand the seriousness of illegally removing a unit of housing from the city. We are here to make that right. We have been working with the planning department for a year and a half on a solution that will satisfy the enforcement issue and honor the history and heritage of this beautiful old home, and we believe the optimal solution is what is in front of you. Our proposal is to add a unit of housing roughly equal in size to what was lost some twenty years ago with improved quality along with improving the functionality and versatility of the property as a whole. We aim to make this our permanent home, one in which we can grow our family. And to that ends, we urge you to support this. Thank you.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Thanks, Brandon. This proposed unit merger with a replacement unit located in an adjacent vertical addition makes the best use of this particular building lot and lot condition. And the existing building was originally built as a single family home in the late eighteen hundreds, and its proportion and circulation are really well suited to that use. The building was converted to two flats at an unknown date, and there's no record of a permit for those changes that were later rated negative one by a reviewer in 1976. Most importantly though, the previously existing stair would not meet current building code, and creating two new street facing code compliance circulation paths would be an inefficient use of this narrow 20 foot, four inch wide building. On the other hand, the lot's rare 39 foot wide width provides more potential. The adjacent second garage with an underused, utilized roof patio offers a great site for urban infill. This existing garage also has reinforced retaining walls, and can provide much of the foundation needs for the addition, reducing excavation needs on a steep hill site. And it's for this reason that we're keeping the addition close to the street to not impact the upper retaining walls, which are quite significant towards the back of the lot. We have worked with our planner to create a design that provides direct access to both the sidewalk and to a shared yard, which is a really lovely amenity on this property. And we feel that the resulting project after working through some of the issues fits very well within the street front here at Coleridge. The neighbor has support from several neighbors, including those across the street and directly to the south, who have provided letters of support. And to the rear, an uphill neighbor attended the pre op meeting and voiced support at that time. Adjacent north neighbors have voiced concerns about project scale, access for windows, construction duration, dust, and noise. We are currently researching potential options for off-site fabrication to limit the duration of construction disturbance, and we'll keep keep them informed on all construction schedules. And we've also made some changes to the project to address their concerns, including removing proposed volume at the front, and relocating a proposed upper patio down to its original location. We've also provided a notch or a two sided light well at the rear of our upper level to accommodate their bathroom window. We think there's many advantages to this proposal over recreating two flats in the existing building. The provided housing is more diverse, creating a one bedroom and a three bedroom instead of two one bedroom units. It provides an additional 770 square feet of housing and two additional bedrooms overall. And the proposed replacement unit is larger than the one lost to merger. In addition, the proposed unit meets current codes and falls within the buildable area of the lot. And the project follows the SF design guidelines, is consistent with the SF general plan, and supports the neighborhood, and no tenant displacement is required. For these reasons, we request your approval, and we thank you for your time and consideration.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter.

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: Hi. Good afternoon, Georgia Shutish. As you know, I've been talking about the flat policy for a long time as well as the the demo calcs. And I saw this, and I I hold these people harmless. You know, they didn't do anything. But I just want to highlight the issue that it raises with how are you going to protect and preserve flats? I know this happened in 2002. It is listed as two flats on the PIM. It may not have ever had permits to do it, but it's listed as two units, two flats on the PIM. And I think it's on the the Sanborn map too. So anyway, I just want to raise the issue of how you codify the flat policy via this using this as a vehicle. I think that the definition of flats, I am almost satisfied with it in the proposed ordinance. But I do think you need to think about the loophole of the in the proposed ordinance of there's no CU if they want to redo it and they add a unit. I mean, it's kind of opening up possibilities of things going wrong. And, I sent a bunch of emails earlier in the year about, first half of the year about flats that have been merged or lost or whatever illegally. And in fact, right now, there's several that have just come back on the market that either did it through 03/17 b seven and kind of merged them, or even before that was in the code, they did it. But now they're back on the market as very high end single family homes. And I I don't have an answer for how you can prevent people from doing bad things that they're not supposed to do other than just to make the code in the ordinance as strong as possible. And maybe you do that by keeping the kitchens the same size, which I think is a big deal, or certainly not that loophole of of if they add a unit. And I guess that's it. Because there are flats everywhere in the city. Just go around and everywhere you look, you see pairs of flats. And it's a good source of housing for, as your findings in the in the flat ordinance say, family middle income family housing. So that's all. Thank you very much.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed. This matter is now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Campbell.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I'm actually just frantically going through the drawings because they weren't in the digital package that I received. I don't know if anyone else just does digital, but but I think I got a good grasp of it. So

[Maggie Lausch (Planner, Department Staff)]: I'm so sorry. We these the architect for this opted into SB twelve fourteen protection. So I tried to get you a restricted set that had the full plans, and it doesn't sound like it reached you. I'm so sorry. I have a one copy printed with me right now.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Well, I'm looking through vice president Moore's set. So

[Tara Sullivan (Applicant Representative)]: Okay.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: It's a it's a it's a nifty project, actually. I really appreciate the it's very easy to get your head around. So I I support this project, I think, is in similar to the last case, like, righting righting a wrong here. And I I think it's a fantastic little infill project. It's a very efficient layout. It's really well thought through. And I think it's a it's you know, you see these around the city. Right? These sort of, like, little single height, structures. Maybe it's a little, garage or something like that, and I think it's a it's a welcome addition to to the neighborhood and and and our housing stock. So I guess things like this make me wonder, like, the violation was so long ago. And my question was actually gonna be to the sponsor, which was is do you have an appetite to even do this or you're being forced to do this? And it sounds like you purchased the property with this project in mind. So so I I I welcome you to come and and validate that assumption based on your comment.

[Brandon Perkovich (Property Owner)]: The house came as a sort of package deal Yeah. For us, and and we understood very much that we would likely have to build a second unit and are okay with that.

[Aaron Starr (Manager of Legislative Affairs, Planning Department)]: Okay.

[Brandon Perkovich (Property Owner)]: So I I don't know if I'm directly answering your question, but that is our assumption and that is our intention today.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Okay. Wonderful. Yeah. So when these violations date back so far, I do just, at a higher level, wonder how how how much we hold folks to righting a wrong when it when it was so many owners ago and and this was over twenty years ago. So but with that in mind, I I would approve this and make a motion to approve with conditions.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yeah. I second it. Commissioner vice president Moore?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I'm also in support of the project, and I'm actually surprised how small the original flats were. They were all under 1,000 square feet, which we normally set as a benchmark for saying that they are indeed the type of housing that Ms. Judith described. They're eight ninety two and seven sixty square feet. That is very small. But that said, I believe that considering building on top of a garage that is set back from the street is an additional opportunity, not just for this particular project, but potentially for others, to look at the addition of another unit unless it is disturbing adjoining neighbors. This property seems to have the benefit of being slightly wider than the typical 25 foot wide lot, but I commend the originality of how you are inserting the unit. You're not asking for raising the building, which others have done. You're basically doing something very practical but very, I think, creative. So I'm in in support of what you're doing, and, that's all.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: This has my support as well. I think it's a very sensitive design, especially the concession sort of made to the, to the removing the the massing at the front of the building and then also the the light well. I mean, you've really opened up a lot of space with this design for, the neighbor's light well or or window to get a lot of light. So it looks great. And mostly, I just wanted to chime in to say I really appreciate the project sponsor, the property owners. You're you're working constructively with the department and finding the solution. It's sort of a fortunate a fortunate circumstance that this is a wider lot where it was possible to do this. We've had trickier ones come before us that were mergers and there it was much harder to figure out, you know, what the geometry of the solution was in the space, but, you know, this looks like a great and very elegant solution. So, I appreciate this project, and it has my support.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Williams.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Yeah. This This has my support too. I just have a couple of comments. I think it was very well thought out. You had that space there, and you made the most of it. But just one comment. It it it doesn't look like the rest of the the buildings, there, and it kind of sticks out a little bit like that. And I know you guys probably follow the design standards. But was there any reason why you didn't want to make it look more like the existing house? Just wondering, I'm just wondering is it a cost consideration or was it?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: It's maybe a little bit more philosophical in a sense about additions that are made in current time that are contemporary, not trying to fake being at of a time that they are not. And so, we're trying to to use a contemporary design language, but in a way that's sensitive and responsive to the forms and rhythm of the street front.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Okay.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Just I was just just wondering. Yeah. Sometimes it's it's a cost consideration, sometimes it's not. But just just, you know, the this block is a it's a beautiful area. And, you know, the architecture on that block is and and other blocks around there is, you know, something that people really appreciate. And so I just that just came up for me. But but anyway, I'm in support of the project.

[Lydia So (President)]: Well, commissioner vice president Moore.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I would fail not to use the opportunity to do a shout out to your neighbors. In most of these cases, we have neighbors vehemently opposing this. And this, I think, is an exception. That's a good point. So I wanna put to record that it is either you with how you're dealing with your neighbors or people waking up together to the fact that we have to densify. I'll leave it either way, but thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Commissioners, if there's no further deliberation, there is a motion that has been seconded to approve with conditions on that motion. Commissioner Campbell?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And commission president Soh?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero. And we'll place this on your final item today, number 12, case number 2024Hyphen010499CUA at 1571 through 1577 Wallace Avenue conditional use authorization.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Yeah. Exactly. Good

[Planning Department staff presenter (name not stated)]: afternoon, president Tsao and members of the Planning Commission, Department staff.

[Andrew Diamond (Neighbor/Public commenter)]: Before you use

[Planning Department staff presenter (name not stated)]: a request for conditional use authorization to establish an industrial agricultural use at 1571 And 1577 Wallace Avenue located in the PDR2 Core Production Distribution And Repair Zoning District. The industrial agricultural use here will be specifically for the purpose of cannabis cultivation. The cultivation will occupy roughly 6,300 square feet and two existing vacant industrial warehouse suites. The proposed scope of work only includes a change of use along with minor interior tenant improvements. No exterior modifications are proposed. Project sponsor, Production Management Systems Inc, have completed substantial outreach to the immediate community including presentations to the Bayview Hunters Point CAC in the months of April and May. And to date the project has received no letters either in support or opposition to the proposal. In closing the proposal use, the proposed use is light industrial in nature and is well suited for the PDR2 core production distribution and prepared zoning district where it proposes to have moderate employee volumes and does not propose and proposes appropriately scaled manufacturing and processing which will result in regular traffic and trucking volumes. The proposed facility is also not open to the public and will only be used for cultivation thus not affecting pedestrian or vehicle traffic. The department thereby finds the project to be compliant with the planning code and in line with the objections and policies of the Bayview Hunters Point area plan, the general plan, and recommends approval with conditions. This concludes staff's presentation and I'm available for questions. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

[Representative, Production Management Systems Inc.]: Public sponsor or you want me to explain a little bit? So this gentleman already explained most of it, of these projects. We are presenting for the production management company. So to add some more things on it, it's the public concern was on the security and the auto mitigation, these two parts. So after getting all those information from our labor, so we have our 20 fourseven civilian and security system and also our professional security provider that will manage for that, particularly for our security. And the other thing that we already share with our neighbor on our existing project because we are working in 1579 right now. We are going to expand for the other additional unit, but we already installed another monitoring system for the auto mitigation. So we share the app with the our labor, it's called the IQ Air, air visual app. So I believe this is the one we are the first one to share all those information with our labor, so they can use the app to check and monitor the record of the air quality that we generate and also the real time information by the air quality. So with the add orders, I hope we can be grounded for the COA. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission. Seeing none, public comment is closed and this matter is now before you commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner vice president Amor.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I did not see any issues with the application in front of us. The applicant already is utilizing space, if I understand that correctly, And I think that establishes an an element of credibility that he knows what the requirements are, including the acceptance of the neighborhood for him to work there. Make a move a motion to approve those conditions.

[Planning Department staff presenter (name not stated)]: Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: There's nothing else, commissioners. There is a motion that has been seconded to approve with conditions on that motion. Commissioner Campbell?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And commission president so?

[Georgia Schuttish (Public commenter)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero and concludes your brief hearing this week. Next week will not be so brief. And I will remind you, we have a 10AM start in these chambers with, Rec and Park.

[Lydia So (President)]: Oh. Wow. Thank you for the reminder.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Indeed. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Thank you.