San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Good afternoon, and welcome to the San Francisco Planning Commission hearing for Thursday, 07/24/2025. 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 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 queued to speak. There is a very convenient timer on the podium where you can see how much time you have left and watch your time tick down. 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. Item one, case number 2025Hyphen004505CUA 1303 Larkin Street Conditional Use Authorization is proposed for continuance to 07/31/2025. Items two a and b for case numbers 2024Hyphen004318SHD and CUA at 350 Amber Drive. Adoption of shadow findings and conditional use authorization are proposed for continuance to 09/25/2025. I have no other items proposed for continuance, so we should open up public comment. 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. You need to come forward, ma'am. Speak into the microphone. Only on the matter of continuance, please.

[Member of Public (Resident of 1303 Larkin St.)]: Good afternoon. I'll try my very best to make this quickly. I'm a resident of the 1303, a senior citizen. I just moved there last August 10. Of course, there are doubts and worries about this this renovation they're trying to to make, and we're gonna have I think it's called temporary eviction.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Ma'am, I'm sorry. Which item are you speaking to? We're only on the continuance calendar. Items one, two a, or two b?

[Member of Public (Resident of 1303 Larkin St.)]: One. 1303 Larkins Street.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Very good. Yeah. We're only taking comment on the matter of continuance, not the project itself.

[Member of Public (Resident of 1303 Larkin St.)]: Uh-huh. So I I I just wanna be rest assured that after this this shenanigans or whatever, it's difficult because a lot

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: of the seniors there are also bedridden and and all that.

[Member of Public (Resident of 1303 Larkin St.)]: I mean, I'm still working luckily and I can still move. I hope our rights will be maintained that after this project, I rest assured that hopefully we can come back for the same price, the same amount, the same amenities that we get. That is just my question and my worry.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, ma'am. This isn't a question and answer period, but thank you for your comments. You could reach out to the project, planner, Carly Grove. Her information's on the agenda. Last call for public comment on the continuance calendar only on the matter of continuance. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and your continuance calendar is now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Macron.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Move to continue items one and two as proposed.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to continue items as proposed, commissioner Campbell.

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

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

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner Moore. Aye. And commission president so.

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero. Placing us on 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 requests, 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 three, case number 2025Hyphen001063CUA at 1453 Mission Street, conditional use authorization. Item four, case number 2021Hyphen011370CUAHyphen02 at 33 Banbury Drive, conditional use authorization. Item five, case number 2020Four-eleven614CUA at 405 Howard Street, conditional use authorization. Item six, case number 2020Five-threeCUA at 685 Market Street, conditional use authorization. And item seven, case number 2020Three-eleven606 CUA at 935 Gary Street, conditional use authorization. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to request that any of these items be pulled off of consent and considered under the regular calendar today or at a future hearing. Again, you need to come forward.

[Speaker 7.0]: Okay. Last

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: call for comment on the consent calendar. Seeing none, public comment is closed. And your consent calendar is now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Imperial?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Move to approve all items as proposed.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to approve items on consent, Commissioner Campbell? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And commission president Soh. Aye. So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously seven to zero. Commission matters item eight, land acknowledgment.

[Lydia So (President)]: Gonna read the land acknowledgment for today's meeting. The commission acknowledge that we are in 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 alone have never ceded, lost, nor 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 Ohlone community and by affirming the sovereign rights as first peoples.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you. Item nine, consideration of adoption draft minutes for 07/10/2025. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on their minutes. Again, you need to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed and your minutes are now before you, commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Braun.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Move to adopt the minutes.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Second.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. On that motion to adopt your minutes, commissioner Campbell. Aye. 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. Item 10, commission comments and questions.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Imperial.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I just want to reflect back on from the last week conversation on the family rezoning plan. And there was a lot of conversation, particularly around the affordability plan. I think, Commissioner Williams and I brought a lot of it. But I'd like to, you know, for the planning department to really work on the road map to affordability. I again, in terms of what the planning department can do in terms of site analysis, you know, site identification, those are great reports that, you know, that the planning department have done. But we also need to, kinda like extending to what I mentioned from last week is looking into the funding that in a way we could really signal to the board of supervisors that the that this is urgent. So, therefore, perhaps the the planning department can work on the together with MOCD in the affordable housing pipeline that actually needs money as as soon as possible. And, how much is that? So that those things are need to be prioritized. And also for us to create a timeline on what is the realistic timeline, not just realistic, but really urgent timeline for the affordability funding for what is required for us to build for low income households that is based on the arena figures. So again, I I know that we we have until September, but it's I think it's good for for the public as well to to have some form of for us, that the planning department and the commission is taking this affordability seriously and that we're signaling the board of supervisors as well as HCD that in order to pass this, you know, as what's being mandated to us, that we're serious about the funding sources. And so that would also include, you know, again, looking into the sources of allocation, whether locally and how much we should ask for the state as well for funding. So, again, I think if I'm willing to talk as well with the planning department and, you know, what other questions that they may have. But I think, we need to start thinking about that seriously by September, and when it goes to the board of supervisors. So thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Williams?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you, Commissioner Imperial. I feel the same. I just wanted to highlight a little bit what was brought up last week around our area plans. And interestingly enough, as I look into our neighborhood area plans, you know, there's so much there. There's so much information. And I think it's important well, at least it's important for me as a commissioner to understand the area plans and how they came how they became about what they, what was involved, how long they took, and the people that, it brought together, the community, that were involved in creating these area plans. What and and the positives and the negatives, you know, what worked, what didn't work. As we move, you know, into this rezoning, I think we can learn a lot. Also, around the affordability, how these area plans addressed creating affordable housing, I think is really interesting to understand, And how their, their whole focus was to create, safe, inclusive, and, thriving neighborhoods, that, that basically everyone could, could be a party to. I, I think that's, that's a good goal. And we should, I, I'd be interested in, in, you know, having a discussion, a broader discussion. I think it's good to understand that history for us as commissioners. And it kind of broadens our understanding of, what it means, what these area plans mean, to our city and, and to our communities.

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

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I have a more generic question, to our environmental department. With some major changes coming out of EPA as of yesterday, it was abandoning, air quality standards and investigating and keeping the rest of the country up to date on what air quality standards do and don't, I'm concerned that in our own planning practice, particularly regarding affected communities, staying on top of the subject matter of how air quality influences the livability of certain in certain neighborhoods where there are already reported issues. I hope that, the environmental department can find new metrics on their own to keep that a very high priority in the in their evaluation of impacted neighborhoods. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Seeing no additional requests to speak from members of the commission, we can move on to department matters. Item 11, director's announcements.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: Hi, everyone. Planning director, Sarah Dennis Phillips. So maybe quickly, just a quick response to some of the commissioner's comments so we can talk about next steps. We look forward to digging into affordability absolutely with you. One thing that it's important to understand, and I think this was framed in commissioner Imperial's comments, is there is a difference between zoning regulations that can create capacity for housing and the broad suite of other policies and regulations that we as a city can do to advance affordability. And so that does mean that while we need to consider them together, and it is important that we advance them both together, that, we understand the difference between those two things as we advance the rezoning in the family zoning plan in, in meeting the state's mandates towards us. We're committed to both, absolutely. And I think there's a whole lot we can do there. Look forward to digging in more, and I'm really glad you guys had the opportunity to hear last week, staff's information, hear the dialogue from the public, contribute your own dialogue, and also understand a little more about our pipeline, which I know was a question that we that was asked at a previous hearing, which we can dig into more. So thank you on that. And on the area plans, commissioner Williams, look forward to supporting you on that. We do have confined time here at the commission hearing, so there is a wealth of information about those online. We'll be happy to provide you with those materials so you can produce on your own. We'll provide to the full commission. And then if there are key areas you wanna dig into, we'll focus from there. And then, commissioner Moore, thank you for your points on the EPA changes. I will note that air quality is a key concern for our team. It actually was something Lisa Gibson and I were just discussing today about how we deal with the conditions that are in, our EIRs, the conditions of approval that we frequently put out that have been successful. How do we how do we expand access to those so that we're creating healthy communities as we grow, and that air quality concedes. So I really appreciate you raising that. One thing I wanna note for the public as well as our commissioners, and this is an important one. There's been a phishing scam, that has, attacked many of our constituents, people who have, approvals pending before the planning department, that is targeting applicants with fraudulent requests for permit payments. We have a big banner across our website noting that there is this payment phishing scam out there. If anyone, anywhere, receives a bill from planning that doesn't look right to you, call us. Don't pay anything. We're we're we're working to, with the police to actually stop this and stop it in its tracks, but I also wanna raise awareness of it while we're in process of that. It's really unfortunate. That's the negative side. So now let's talk about some positive stuff. Just a couple quick things. The Market Street visioning competition was something that the mayor supported and acted as a jury host for last week. A a panel of really esteemed jurors announced the I think there were six, actually, primary award awardees of that competition, along with a number of honorable mentions. It was a really exciting event because it took something that I think for us has been a challenge. Market Street, both in its use design and, frankly, the the issues that it's felt post COVID and turned it into a real opportunity. There were some amazing visions there from a light show to a mile long bench to allowing nature to take over. So really encourage you, if you have time, to peruse ULI's website to look at that. The winning competition entries are on display at the Ferry Building for the next two weeks, so the public can enjoy those. I know our team, some of whom are here today, look forward to helping carry some of those forward, hopefully. And that was the goal with the competition alongside all of the other public realm efforts that we have moving forward, to to support our downtown's change into a live work play neighborhood. So that's an exciting one. Also, last week, Lily Langlois from our staff presented at Gensler on our adaptive reuse program alongside partners from New York who have been doing adaptive reuse successfully for years, and, developers in San Francisco. The key point I wanna note there is that the developer on the panel, really applauded planning and the city's work towards adaptive reuse and said with the changes that we've made to the planning code, to the building code, and through cost reduction, really, it is now in their hands to pull off these conversions. The city has done everything it can do to help advance those as a category of project,

[Lydia So (President)]: and now we need to

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: see those move forward. So it's just a testament to staff's work, that that is happening, which is really great. I think it's worth noting to you, commissioners, I am, as a as a new director, finding my way to meet through various portions of the community. There's so many people to meet out there, but it's been great, you know, this week to meet with the equity council, which we did this week. We met with Bernal Neighbors, who continue to want to support housing in neighborhood. We have a workshop, Westside Housing Convening this Saturday that I know commissioner Soh will be joining, which is exciting. And, again, continue to look for opportunities to engage with the public, both on our family zoning plan, which is a key one, but on other topics, that are important to planning. So grateful for the opportunities and and looking for more. And then the last one. I think this is just worth noting because I think you'll see lots of your staff. Plan the planning department along with the rest of the city is looking towards, returning to the office four days a week as of August 18. So when you return from your commission break in September, you'll be seeing a lot more of us around, which I think will only be successful in helping us really support the people we need to help, our communities out in the public, our constituents who are bringing projects forward, and frankly, our our contact with the city, which we really need to know, understand, and and be in to serve all of you correctly. So with that, that's my report.

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

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Yeah. I just just wanted to highlight, on on the area plans. You know, I I think it's it's good for not just for me, but for the public to understand all the various area plans and how they've worked, how they haven't worked, giving the upzonings and the changes that are gonna happen in

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

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: city. And so I think it's a good kind of road map. And what my hope is is that we have some discussion in the public that kinda highlights the things that worked and the things maybe that didn't work so well so that we could, you know, grow. We could we could figure out a better way, moving forward. And so I just wanted to add that. That's all.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Commissioners, we can move on to item 12, review of past events at the Board of Supervisors. I have no report from the Board of Appeals, and the Historic Preservation Commission did not meet yesterday.

[Aaron Starr (Manager of Legislative Affairs, SF Planning)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Aaron Starr, manager of legislative affairs. This week, the land use committee considered supervisor and guardio's ordinance that would, among other things, allow for the legalization and reconstruction of non complying unpermitted structures. This item was continued from the June 30 hearing to provide more time for the proposed amendments to be drafted. Those amendments were recommended by this commission and included to, one, amend the ordinance to clarify that detached structures allowed in yards may not contain sleeping quarters. Two, allow non complying structures that are relocated per building code requirements to be relocated at the same distance from property lines as the existing structure. And three, do not issue refunds for previous sought variances. So during public hearings, supervisor Angardio presented the amendments. There were no public commenters. Supervisor, Cheyenne Chen, stated her support for the proposed ordinance and the amendments, and made a motion to forward the item to the full board, which passed unanimously. Then at the full board this week, the fenestration, transparency, and sign requirements ordinance, sponsored by the mayor as part of the permit s f effort passed its second read, and, supervisor and guardio's non complying and unpermitted structure ordinance passed its first read. That's all I have for you today. Happy to answer any questions.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Seeing no questions for mister Starr, 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 accept 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.

[Ramey Tan (Architect and property owner)]: Hello. My name is Ramey Tan. I am a local architect, and owner of property at 2755 Sutter Street, which if you see on the slide is right here next to the Booker T. Washington Center. And I reviewed the map, the June map for the family rezoning plan and noticed that our property was not included in the upzoning, even though it's surrounded on three sides by 65 feet high zoning. So I'm just wondering, you know, as the the up zoning plan is going through, you know, if we can get considered to be included in the 65 feet, that that surrounding and I'm also looking at all of up and down the zoning, if there could be a consistency so that all the properties that are adjacent have similar zoning. I think that would be the most fair thing to happen. I feel like our property was just left out. And we are less than a quarter mile from express buses and the Geary 38 line. And it's a really great opportunity that we can up zone and densify in that neighborhood. And I'm afraid that my property and many others may have been missed. The other thing, I've been tracking the SB 79 Scott Wiener's plan, and fully supportive of that. It makes a lot of sense to put the up zone housing near transit, like the Geary line, the BART lines, the Caltrain lines, where we have a significant investment in heavy rail infrastructure and BRT and these sort of things. And it's really important to get those properties zones so we can put the density on there and increase ridership, increase frequency of the transit, and get people out of their cars and walking and using transit. So I encourage the planning commission and the planning department to take a really close look at SB 79. Maybe be proactive and look at improving their family zoning plan so that it reflects SB 79. So we're consistent once it passes, which sounds like it's pretty likely. Okay. Thank you for your consideration.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Last call for general public comment for item not, not on today's agenda.

[Member of Public (Sunshine request/records complainant)]: Go now.

[Lydia So (President)]: For

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: general What's the

[Member of Public (Sunshine request/records complainant)]: public comment?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: For general public comment. Yes.

[Member of Public (Sunshine request/records complainant)]: This is general public comment. I'm here to, read the declaration I just left with David Chu's office, the city attorney, concerning upzoning and our inability to get from the department planning a record request, simple record request. Dear mister attorney general Chu, city attorney rather Chu, last night I presented to the San Francisco Democratic Party Central Committee concerning the upzoning proposals by the mayor, ordinances which, should they pass, I believe will greatly harm, me and other residential tenants in San Francisco. During the presentation last night, I told d triple c I had submitted an immediate disclosure request to planning on July 6, and no record has been forthcoming. In consequence, I told DCCC, I filed a complaint July 11, to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. The records requested on July 6 from planning are merely those indicating the number of buildings and or parcels that include, residential renters and also are included in the upzoning sections of the map submitted to support the ordinances before the Board of Supervisors, the map we've all seen in this room. Your office, mister city attorney, is specifically tasked this is a quote from the Charter, from the Charter, specifically tasked by the Sunshine Ordinance to protect people's right to access public information, and also, another quote, designated supervisor of records charged with reviewing petitions from the public when they believe the response from an agency or an official is noncompliant or incomplete. You should also know that following my presentation before d triple c last night, a lawyer from a Chinatown group, the meeting was held in Chinatown, told me that his group also has an outstanding unanswered request to the planning department that, like our request and that like our request, his group subsequently complained to the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, and he has not been answered for a month, meaning no hearing is set up, it's true for us, and no record is forthcoming. Our unanswered request, by our, I mean our group, not speaking for the other attorney in the Chinatown group, to the planning department warrants your, meaning the city attorney's, immediate assistance. It is a time sensitive matter. I believe the department's intransigence in releasing these records, records that city employees themselves have told us the department possesses, is a hurdle for renters to meaningfully meaningfully participate in the debate about upzoning. Thank you. The above statement is true and correct on my information and belief and is submitted under the penalty penalty of perjury of the state of California. So it's a declaration. I thought that was the best way to do it for David's office, and it's before the, city attorney now, Simply to get a record. We're not trying to cause problems here. We just want renters to know what buildings are in the upzoning sections. We haven't even got which is how many buildings? We've gotten nothing from the department. Thank you.

[Quintin Mackey (Council of Community Housing Organizations)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Quintin Mackey with the Council of Community Housing Organizations. I want to follow-up on Commissioner Imperial's and Commissioner Williams' comments around the family zoning discussion from last week and really encourage us to take one step further into this conversation. If the city's intent is simply to produce and submit to HCD compliant numbers that match the RHNA goals, and then we're going to walk away. Let's be clear about that. But I think we have a deeper opportunity than to do something different. And part of that is right now, the conversation last week was, oh, we heard from certain departments. That's not our job as the city. That's someone else's political question. It's someone else's decision around the funding. And with all of the resources the city has, let's do some actual scenario planning and give people options. Right now, in the current zoning map, it is absolutely unclear how it's feasible to get to 20,000 low income units in the current zoning map. And I think it needs to be really clear. Have the controller do an estimate. Create what kind of funding for the next five years is required to unstick the pipeline. What kind of funding is required to get to 20,000 low income units. Otherwise, we're just gonna talk about, sure, the zoning map looks great and we can say it complies with RHNA. But is that all we wanna do? This is the largest upzoning in San Francisco history and let's actually do the work, have the controller's office, MOCD, planning department get together and create some actual scenarios that decision makers at the board can choose and make some decisions around. If we're just going to send it to the board of supervisors with zoning maps and say, you do the work, We don't actually are gonna walk away from any particular scenarios about how to actually reach these numbers. So I wanna do the we need to backfill a little bit on this on this program and actually create models for people to make decisions around. That's what I would encourage before September 11. So when you get to that hearing in September, you actually have something you can make a decision on rather than just sort of a broad brush and say, hey, we did our job. We can get to large numbers and submit it to HCD and walk away. Let's not walk away from this. Let's do actually the planning required before January to make this zoning map a reality, especially for affordability because it's an it's an entire ecosystem. And if we're only gonna rely on the capacity of market rate housing to provide for affordability, we will fail.

[Jim Warshaw (Van Ness Corridor Neighborhoods Coalition)]: Good afternoon. My name is Jim Warshall. I'm speaking today on behalf of Venice Corridor Neighborhoods Coalition. Nine neighborhood groups from Western Samoa all the way to The Bay that got together to treat Venice as our neighborhood and not just the border to each of our individual neighbors. We had a very productive meeting with planning to go over the height and, density changes. And not only was it productive, but we were able to have all nine groups submit their comments with the objective of meeting the same height and the same density and productivity, but getting our neighborhood input added to it so that some things went up, some things went down, and provided the reasons for it. I did speak to a journalist and he chose to do the common narrative of neighborhood groups want a lower heights. That wasn't the tone of the conversation. That wasn't the tone of the letter we submitted to planning. And I wasn't going to say anything, but after hearing the first gentleman, in public comment today, it occurred to me that, you know, what we really have to be talking about is just as he's recommending up zoning. We shouldn't have preconceptions that neighborhood groups or neighbors are always going to be saying, I don't want change. I want to downsize. Don't do that to me. It's not the case. People want to work together. They want to have a good solution. And I think we're all on the same page that we need to build housing and we want to build housing. So I would encourage, I know you weren't involved when, we submitted it to Rich Hillis, but there is a letter and I'll be happy to, submit it again to you if you like. But, let's give this idea of neighborhood engagement a little more credibility. It'll have gentlemen like the first speaker saying, Around me is 65 feet. I'd like to be too. Or the Van Ness Corridor's letter saying, here's why we think something should go up and something should go down, and we think it will actually be more likely to get built this way, and we'll meet the same targets that you were, trying to get. So again, let's give the process and community engagement the credit that I think San Franciscans deserve that we wanna be positive, we wanna be informed, we wanna be engaged. So please respect that process and allow for the input. Thank you so much.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Last call for general public comment. Seeing none in the room, we will go to our reasonable accommodation requester.

[Sue Hester]: This is Sue Hester. This is the meeting that I've been hoping for for a long time. The three speakers at the beginning of the Planning Commission's comments really started this session. Imperial, yes. Williams, yes. More, yes. Basically you all asked for planning to do planning, the planning commission to do planning and part of planning is putting issues on the table and discussing them not only the planning department staff, but the planning commission and the public. Imperial brought up the roadmap to affordability that is really critical to the planning how the plant department functions in its role giving advice to the planning commission and to the city's whole. Commissioner Williams brought up the area plans and they need to understand them. Yes, that is major because you have first year plan on the calendar today. Let's say next time. Market Octavia is an important area plan, but it's an important area plan to have a discussion route, not just merely rubber stamping, legislation before the commission. Commissioner Moore talked about the changes in the sequel planning code that's coming partly they're coming from Washington, partly they're coming from Sacramento. So you need an explanation of what's going on, how the air quality affects neighborhoods is very important. But transit as well and everything that is mandating growth of housing and affects affordable housing affects neighborhoods. And I thought the Planning Director made her comments about seeing changes to zoning as an area that's committed to the both the planning department and the community. I would encourage the planning commission to expand consideration, put it on the agenda to have these discussions in a very short time, because you have to do expansion of the housing goals for the area for the housing element, put these discussions before the Planning Commission right after the holidays, right after August. I'm encouraged because I've heard more discussion, positive discussion about really grappling with tough issues about building and building affordable housing. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Thank you. Last call for public comment on for general public comment. Seeing none, general public comment is closed. And we can move on to your regular calendar, commissioners, for item 13, case number 2020Five-five224 PCA, waiving certain development impact fees in the market in Octavia area. This is a planning code amendment.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: Good afternoon, President Tsao, Vice President Moore, and commissioners.

[Lydia So (President)]: Sorry. I'm sorry. Commissioner Williams, you want to say something?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank thank you, sir. Thank you, President Stowe. You know, given all the discussion that we've had around these area plans, I think it's appropriate to I want to make a motion to put this on the agenda, to put a discussion on the agenda as far as looking at the area plans and maybe getting deep in taking a deep dive into the existing area plans that we have, seeing what's worked, seeing what hasn't, to better move forward. I think it's appropriate given where we're at with everything going on. And I think we can learn from it. I think it's important discussion. And if we're not having it, I think we're missing out on something.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Excuse me, but if I could interject, if it pleases the commission and the chair, we should really reopen commission matters, commission comments and questions to take such an action. We're currently under general public comment. Well, we're sort of technically under the regular calendar now, I called it in, but we should really, through the chair, go back to commission matters to accomplish this task or accommodate this request.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you, Jonas. And thank you, Commissioner Williams. And then Director Dennis Phillips, you might wanna say something?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: I'm I'm happy to speak to just respond to that. Jonas, is this okay?

[Lydia So (President)]: As soon

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: as they reopen the

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: commission comments and questions?

[Lydia So (President)]: I think we should. Yeah.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Very good. Then through the chair, commission comments and questions.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you. So so, like, again, I'd like to make a motion to hold a public hearing on our existing area plans. I think there's a lot we can learn from moving forward. I think we haven't talked enough about it, at least since I've been on the commission. And I think there's a lot at stake given where we're at with everything. And so,

[Lydia So (President)]: yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Williams. And Director Dennis Phillips?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: Thank you. Thank you, commissioner Williams, for that. Just in in light of particularly if you guys are considering a motion, this is a new topic for me as a director. We haven't done an area plan in some time, And so happy to provide feedback. I think if what commissioner Williams is looking for is an assessment of what worked and what hasn't given the number of area plans, the breadth of area plans, and the time delta that that's taken, staff some time to prepare. If that's something you guys would like us to request to do, that is fine. I just want to caution on time, particularly since you are approaching a recess and we have a tight calendar in September.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yeah. The timing, it's a very well noted factor here, Director. Commissioner Imperial?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I would support that, Commissioner Williams. My question, again, is if the factor is the timeline, and then if this is in coinciding of the family zoning plan. My understanding is that this, we will review or adopt or the date for the adoption of the rezoning plan for the commission is on September 11 unless the commission decided to continue that. And so, you know, that is like, I would like to be more clear in terms of, like, how this coincides with the family zoning plan. And then it's good for us in general, in public to have this assessment of the general plans. But if the goal is to assess on how it connects to the family zoning plan, I think that can be a conflict. I mean, I'm just going to, you know, if we're going about the timeline on this. So, you know, I mean, if commissioner Williams or other commissioners have comments whether we should have the assessment of general plans first. I mean, if that is what you're thinking as well, that is September, then you know? But at the same time, I understand that that will probably conflict with all the timelines that we have to do with HCD and stuff like that. And so so these are kinda like the questions that we need to consider because there are also other moving parts in terms of legislation that's also going into this. You know, there are other you know, the tenant protections, the small business protections, the the there's a rezoning. And then I'm I'm also talking about affordability road map too. And so I again, the timeline for us is what I'm kinda like I'm you know, like, these are the things that also need for the public. There are things that need to move to the board of supervisors as well. Yeah. There's a lot of business. And if we're just if the goal is to just educate the public to for for the public to have comments on the assessment of plans, I don't know how would how much of this the assessment of plans would take, you know. So, again, November, December, if that's what we're talking about. But yeah.

[Lydia So (President)]: It seems like

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Through the chairs, I can ask a follow-up question because I think building on director Dennis Phillips' comments, if the idea is for us to share more in-depth about how the specific changes, which are very minor Mhmm. In the general plan amendments affect the area plans, we can do that. That's relatively simple. But if it's a deep dive into each area plan and its history and what it's done and what its purpose is, that's in assessing its effectiveness. That's a very different scope of work.

[Lydia So (President)]: Mhmm.

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: So if it's, you know, including in our discussion in September a review of that. And of course, we've made ourselves available to everybody for briefings. We can make ourselves available for additional briefings if you wanna go into a really, really deep dive. We have we usually try to keep our presentations to twenty minutes when we're before you. So we can include written comments that you could read at your leisure. But our verbal discussion will be somewhat limited. But we can just say, you know, here's how this family zoning plan and the amendments we're asking to make impact these area plans, but an assessment of them is a different scope of work. So I'm what maybe the commissioners can opine on what exactly you were wanting and expecting for us to provide to you.

[Lydia So (President)]: I, generally really highly encourage, all my fellow commissioners, if you haven't done so already, reach out to our staff to ask questions and do, the area that you matters you the most interest, to, get all your answered. But I also understand that there's another aspect of it. Commissioner Williams mentioned that it's also also Commissioner Imperial, it's about the there's some validity of having a public presentation to perhaps highlight what has changed, because this family zoning plan had been come in front of us for information hearing from numerous times, and it has continued to refine. And I think according to director, Rachel Tanner has mentioned that to highlight some of the what had basically, what are the changes that were made in recent months, That is very reasonable. And, we are in recess in August, so we have to pretty much work really hard and diligently to to to to carve out some time here to figure that out. I'd like to hear more of my commissioner's thought about this. Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I think because of the timing of the legislation coming before us, it's currently set for September 11. And I believe at the ninety day deadline for us to hear that legislation, the most we could push it out is, I think, September 18, the following week. Because of that timing, I would be in support of just some information being included ahead of the eleventh, perhaps, in the packet that and it's a presentation that explains what are the boundaries of the different area plans and how does that overlay on the changes that are happening in the expanded capacity in the new zoning. And then I would be supportive of an informational item to come to the commission in the future about the area plans and their history and the type of maybe slightly deeper assessment that has been described. But I think given the timing, I what I would rather prioritize is just having a clearer picture of how the area plans inter intersect with the areas where the zoning is being changed.

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

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I'd like to focus the question of, Commissioner Williams a little bit more on actually hearing about the Market Octavia plan. I have to assume that his comments are triggered by the fact that the upcoming legislation or consideration of eliminating fees for affordable housing out of Market Octavia is at the core of his question. So I believe that the Market Octavia plan, which was conceived way, way before the majority of commissioners were sitting here on the stairs and don't really understand the incredible impact that particular neighborhood plan had, needs to be brought not only to the commission as a whole, but also I believe effectively the the public would greatly benefit from potentially deriving the conclusion that was that what was decided so many years ago may be perhaps still an important ingredient as we are struggling with a question about affordability literally in every meeting. Today, we spend a significant amount of commissioner's comment in search for answers. I personally believe having spent more than five years in the shaping of the market Octavia plan and the incredible challenges that were posed as a commission itself to support and grow with supporting it, I believe that there may be some lessons to be learned out of it and eliminating or permanently eradicating this experience prior to, the family up zoning plan, I think requires a lot of caution. I think we can only do heavy lifting in the public spirit for so many years, and we can then not just all of a sudden see it being wiped away with, without those people who participated in the first place being asked to comment and share with us what they learned. So I see the value of bringing some discussion back, prior to September, an extremely important ingredient. And there may be parts that we can bend and there are others which we embrace as strongly forward leading, but I think this is not just a clean sweep. And I see the request, of commissioner Williams to perhaps to be more focused on finding a way for an abbreviated presentation, perhaps even working with the previous CAC to bring forward of what we learned. Those will be my comments.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Imperial?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you, commissioners. My comment is, you know, it seems like there's a lot of things going on. And if the projected date is September 11, I'm not really comfortable. I'm just going to be honest. I'm trans going to be transparent that I'm not comfortable of adopting this on September 11. If anything, we should extend it, continue it. Perhaps the acceptable time is September 18 with the presentation on the affected area plan that will be impacted the most in the family zoning plan. And that would probably be market Octavia plan. But perhaps that can be the kind of assessment or presentation that we can have on September when we come back in terms of the assessment or general plans that is going to be affected by the family zoning. And then have a deeper dive, kinda like what commissioner Braun was mentioning, in all the assessments of the area plans in this November, December, or whenever is that acceptable for the planning department staff. But in terms of the family zoning plan, you know, I hear that they're, you know, that in terms of the assessment of the area plans, the ones that is being affected by the family zoning plan the most.

[Lydia So (President)]: One thing I'd like to clarify on

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: is say, we could do that. Mhmm. Like, we can I think part of what I wanna let me just share what I I think we can do? And if it sounds like that's what you're thinking, great. But I wanna make sure we're clear on what we can't do to not set expectations that are, you know, not reachable. We can certainly share either, via writing because we only have one hearing before September. So just to be clear, before September is next week. Just to be really crystal clear about that for you all. Okay? So we can communicate via writing and also make it available to the public, you know, before the hearing, kind of a a deeper just like explaining how those area plans and what the changes are. The changes that are being made in those area plans is very minute. So it's it's pretty surgical. Right? So it's pretty easy for us to share that. It'd be easiest for us to put it in the staff report. It'd be easier for us to talk about it when we present to you on September 11. If it's a deeper look back at our area planning process and lessons learned from that, something more robust or a presentation on each area plan, that's not something that we probably could accommodate on September 11 or to to complete that assessment until later on. So if it's explaining how the family zoning plan intersects with the area plans, easy peasy. Can do that. If it's something that's more robust and just thinking about area plans more broadly, that would be something that would be out of out of scope for the time we have right now.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thanks for the clarification. Commissioner Williams, you have one more thing to say?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I do. Thank you. I would agree with everything that's been said here. I think this is a good discussion. I I think it's it it's important that the public be a part of, the discussion. And so I I made a motion. I don't know if Is it did did I make a motion?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: I thought you were

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I was trying to

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: kind of a motion. Yeah. And I I haven't heard any kind of a second associated with that, but

[Lydia So (President)]: I thought that was

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: the intent

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: of going back to commission matters.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: So I would like to make a motion that we do have this conversation on September 11.

[Lydia So (President)]: I do want to say, can you be a little more clear? What is this kind of conversation entail? Rachel had already informed us that there are certain things that our staff can't do given the amount of time we have. Right. And there's some issues that some of the aspect of things that we the staff really cannot really do. So we want to make sure in respect of that, do you mind to clarify your motion?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Yeah. So the motion would be around how, as Commissioner Braun said, how the up zone is going to affect the area plans. It could be part of it. And also a quick or some kind of analytical presentation on how, especially how the area plans have addressed affordable housing, I think would be very helpful. And if anyone else has any other thoughts, but I think those two for me right now are probably the most important things.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Is there a second to that motion?

[Lydia So (President)]: Is it actually feasible, Rachel?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: It's certainly the first part. I think how area plans have addressed affordable housing, we certainly can share with you our housing dashboard, which can share the affordable housing that's been built in each area plan. So that's information we could provide to you today. I don't know, again, if it's something different than that.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: But Yeah. Yeah. Well, just so that the public understands, I mean, I know you have the dashboards, and I appreciate that. But, like, there there has these area plans haven't have included actions that have created affordable housing. And it would be, you know, it it seems like those those types of actions are being taken away or they're being reduced. And so I I kinda wanna understand, you know, how how they've how these, area plants were able to, produce, some affordable housing And maybe what kind of alternatives, if we're going to get rid of some of these ideas that the area plans produce around affordable housing, what alternatives could be had. And so I think, again, just talking about it kind of brings it up and then kind of gets us thinking about what the solutions are as far as creating more affordable housing. I don't know if I said was that clear? Sorry. It's very clear.

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: I guess it's clear. I'll just say I don't know that we can provide that analysis by the time that you're talking about. So you all can certainly make your motions. But I want to be clear about our capacity so we can, again, say what we can do. We can talk about the changes in the intersecting with family zoning plan. We can provide a summary of the affordable housing built in area plans to date. Doing an analysis of all the various ways that these area plans have produced affordable housing is gonna be out of scope for what we can produce

[MOHCD Representative (Affordable Housing)]: in time.

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: I I apologize

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: for that. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you for the thank you for giving us all this information because that that helped all of us to kind of evaluate what is, reasonable and attainable. And, also, I hear that commissioner Williams' concern is more on also the public and needs to know about this. And I wonder if this is something might be perhaps that we can do like Commissioner Brown mentioned that in the further on later day, we might be able to host, like a community information call to talk about these aspect of the concern of where are the area plan, tied into encouraging affordable housing, 100% affordable housing, that might be something that seems to be doable a little bit more. And I also wondering, I wanted to clarify though, commissioner Williams, your concern is the overall upzoning plan and the area plan, which is totally a different area than what the other item that is coming in front of us, which is Autavia and Market Street. Right? I wanted to be clarify that don't wanna put words on your mouth. Like, your your focus is about the outstanding up zoning plan and the area plan that impact the future affordability of 100% affordable housing that has not really coming from because of Octavia Market Street. Just wanna clarify that. Okay. Okay. Director Dennis Phillips?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: Just as you consider the motion, I wanted to just kind of provide the final clarity on on what planning commission would propose to do and also, link it to Commissioner Imperial's comments after. I think what we would propose to do is come back to you very clearly in advance of the September hearing and at the September hearing with a very clear analysis of how the family zoning plan affects any area plans, as Rachel noted. Right? And as we noted, it's very small and surgical. We would we can provide you affordability numbers that are off the shelf that we have now at this point in time on those if those are of use to Commissioner Williams or others. We would propose to, in line with Commissioner Imperial's comments during our original, commissioner discussion, have an ongoing post September conversation on that roadmap to affordability, including how area plans have contributed to affordability. One thing I just wanna reference, is mister Mackey, who is here representing ChuChu, noted that, we cannot rely on market rate housing to get our affordability, there. And I do wanna note that most of the area plans provisions toward affiliate affordability rely solely on market rate housing, and they do not touch on the broader sources of funding and conversation that I think commissioner Imperial was noting that we as a city need

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: to move forward to.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: So I just I I wanna note that I think having that ongoing conversation, at and after the September hearing will allow us to touch on the issues that I heard many of the commissioners say they want to touch on affordability, and it will not appear impair your consideration of the family zoning plan.

[Lydia So (President)]: That's very I'm glad you brought that up because that's exactly what you also mentioned earlier in your director's report that there's two pieces of the pie here. One is the, family zoning plan, which only controls the massing of any given parcel. But then there's, other legislations and other things that are outside of the planning commission and planning department that contributing the stimulation of the actual availability of funding source coming in to fund 100% affordable housing. So it is not where how we determine, when we will feel comfortable to let the family zoning plan get out of our commission is only just one segment of bringing 100% affordable housing to San Francisco. There are other aspect of the information that we should be getting, but it's not in our conditions to vote on. So that I would appreciate something that is more ongoing on the informational and educational piece to keep all of us and the public kinda be aware of what other aspect of things that could help and affect and encourage 100% affordable housing. Yeah. Thank you.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: So back to my motion. Is there a second?

[Lydia So (President)]: I might do it again.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: So just to be clear, the motion I put forward is an analysis on how the upzoning is going to affect the area plans. And is that right, Rachel? And also an affordability analysis on on our affordable housing.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Commissioner Williams, I I think just to help in this

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

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: In the

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I'm a little confused. I'm sorry.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: I I know. I think these are the things that's going to be coming to us regardless that perhaps the only motion that you can put in is the the deeper assessment of the area area plans in the months to come. Because, I mean, I I think we've already had this, you know, from, you know, from the directors in terms of the these are going to be part. Like, I feel confident that those are going to be part of the conversation or analysis when it comes on September 11. But I think in terms of, like, having a deeper, like, assessment, perhaps that's something you can put in as a motion so that we really put that in the calendar for the public to have a conversation.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioner Imperial, for that clarification. I think to commissioner Williams, if the director's commitment to the commission is sufficient, maybe a motion is not necessary. But only unless you want it, as commissioner Imperial is clarifying, going into a deeper dive into all of the area plans.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: So So what I'm hearing is that the planning department is gonna cover how the overlap on the area plans and the upzonings are, how that's gonna like an analysis of that and where it's at. And that's gonna be a part of what what we hear on September 11. Okay. In that case, I'll I I think the, you know, the information that that that I was obtaining or wanted to obtain is is being covered, partly covered, but good enough. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. I'm glad we had this really candid conversation. Thank you, commissioner Williams. Thank you, commissioner Cariel.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, commissioners. If there's nothing further under commission comments and questions, great. We can move on to the regular calendar for item 13 for case number 2025Hyphen005224PCA waiving certain development impact fees in the market in Octavia area. This is a planning code amendment.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: Good afternoon, President Tsao, Vice President Moore, and commissioners, Lily Langlois, planning department staff. The item before you is legislation that was introduced on June 17 by Mary Lurie and supervisors Dorsey and Mahmood, entitled Waiving Certain Development Impact Fees in the Market Octavia Plan Area. I'm joined by staff from the mayor's office, the D6 office, as well as staff from SFMTA and MOHCD. I'll turn over the presentation to Jacob Bintleff, who will provide background and overview of the legislation, and then I'll return to provide some more details.

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: Thank you, Lily. Good afternoon, commissioners. Jacob Bintliff with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Oh, good to be with you today. So the Mark Octavia plan was adopted in 2007. It came into effect in 2008. It's one of the oldest area plans that we have adopted. The impetus for this plan was to rezone the area to provide for a transit transit oriented mixed use walkable neighborhood following the takedown of the Central Freeway. When the plan was adopted, it created two impact fees, one for affordable housing, one for community infrastructure in the entire Market Octavia area. It also created a Van Nessen Market Special Use District or SUD, which is the portion of the plan area that's, in red on the zoning map on this slide where there were three additional fees for affordable housing and community infrastructure applied. So if you're in that area, you have five additional impact fees on top of the citywide fees and two additional fees beyond the citywide fees in the rest of the plan area. Since the plan was adopted, about seventeen years ago, a lot a lot has happened and it's been quite successful. There have been, 4,800 units of housing built in the plan area. 1,700 of those units have been affordable housing. That's 35%, which is a very good number. The plan has also been successful in terms of the community improvements. It's generated about $53,000,000 in fees that have been collected and spent on community improvements throughout the plan area, covering not only covering transportation and complete streets projects like the Hays Street two way project, a variety of intersection and pedestrian improvements, throughout the area, bike improvements like the Page Street Neighbor Way and on Polk Street, a number of public realm improvements such as the Linden Living Alley, McCaughton Street Greening, tree planting and sidewalk greening throughout the area. Also, parks and public realm, the Margaret Hayward Park renovation, Patricia's Green itself, and most recently, the Buchanan Mall, renovation project, which is one of the last major projects, on the original list. So, we've been busy over those years with our sister agencies, planning in OAWD and others, and, there's been a lot of success there. However, fast forwarding to today, we are in a different reality and times have changed. As we all know, since the pandemic, development has effectively stalled throughout the city. And in the Market Octavia area, that is no exception. Since 2020, there have actually only been two residential projects that have broken ground and successfully completed construction for a total of 37 units. Meanwhile, in our development pipeline, there are 26 residential projects accounting for 2,700 additional affordable units or additional units, including some on-site affordability, that have been approved but have not broken ground. So they are stalled due to the market conditions that we experience right now. As a result of this, the impact fee revenue in market activity has also stalled. There has been very little revenue collected since 2020. And over the next three years, no revenue is projected to come in. So basically, we had a really good stretch from 2008 to 2019, and we are now looking at, almost an eight year stretch where we do not expect to see any meaningful revenue coming in from these impact fees. Meanwhile, it has also, come to our attention that the impact fees in particular are actually themselves a contributing factor to this slowdown in development that is holding back, the additional housing development. These fees represent between a third and half of a project's total impact fee obligation with the city. So if you're in that SUD area, your impact fee bill is effectively doubled by the program in place within this market, within this market in Octavia plan area. That's 20,000 to $60,000 per unit per total unit in additional cost just coming from these fees, not with respect to any other city costs that are imposed on the projects. So looking at that, you know, you have to conclude that at this point in time, while the fees were successful at the time they were adopted and when the market was able to provide for those fees, that at this point in time, they have effectively become counterproductive.

[Lydia So (President)]: Which is

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: what has led to this ordinance, as Lily said, introduced by mayor Lurie, supervisors Dorsey, and Mahmoud, who represent a large part of the area. It would sunset all five of those additional impact fees that apply within the area, for both pipeline projects, the stalled pipeline projects that are not moving forward, as well as for future projects moving forward. It would also correspondingly sunset the Market and Octavia Community Advisory Committee, who one of their primary roles being to advise on how these funds should be spent. Since there hasn't been any funds to talk about for a few years, they have, been meeting somewhat sporadically and have often not been able to make a quorum. I wanna be clear that the proposal would retain all the citywide impact fees, so that would include our inclusionary housing program, transportation sustainability fee, citywide childcare fee, as well as fees for arts programming. Our premise here, commissioners, is that by helping to get this housing development out of the ground, we can actually unlock that revenue from the citywide impact fees as well as generate significant increases in property tax revenue, which is really the big money that we're talking about as far as the city's revenue from these projects. The amount of, property tax revenue that comes from any given project, far exceeds what we would receive in impact fees. So by reducing some of these city costs on the projects, we're hoping we can help stimulate the housing development, not only to get the residents in the area to spend money in local businesses, to ride muni as well, but also to generate that revenue that supports everything else we do in the city, including affordable housing and these types of community improvements that we're talking about. We have done quite a bit of outreach, about this. We've talked with the Market Octavia CAC, the Hays Valley Neighborhood Association, DuBose Triangle Neighborhood Association, Castro Upper Market CBD, the Civic Center CBD. I can say with respect to sunsetting, the Community Advisory Committee that while they were not able they did not have a quorum at the day we attended, there was some support voice for this. There's also support from both past and present members of the CAC who see that a lot of good work has been done and there are diminishing returns to that body, continuing. Lily has some other information about the consistency of that with other plan areas. With respect to the fees, I think it's fair to say there's broad support for helping to get the housing projects developed. There's a lot of interest for that throughout the community. There are concerns about what the plan will be for continuing to deliver the community projects and the affordable housing. So on that point, I wanna emphasize that these projects, do not go away. We the city will continue to deliver community improvements and affordable housing through the capital planning process, through the various departments that own these various community improvement projects through MOCD using funding sources that are available. I wanna emphasize that these market activity fees are not a funding source that is currently available, because they're they have not been coming in and they're not being realized now. This is one of the reasons why when we've talked with the delivering departments, they recognize that this funding stream has always been viewed as a supplemental funding source and never as a primary source because they are so volatile and unpredictable. Projects often move forward having to find other sources even under in past years and certainly under current conditions. And finally, these impact fees have always only ever been a small portion of any given project's funding mix. So we do and we do have folks from OCD and MTA here as well to speak with you today and happy to talk about that more in question. So in closing, supervisors, I think we see this as an opportunity to really take stock and celebrate the success of this plan area while also taking the necessary steps to adjust to the current conditions so that we can continue to deliver on the housing and the, and the improvements and the vitality that we're looking for in this neighborhood that was always envisioned by the plan. With that, I will hand it, I think, over to, Madison Tam from Supervisor Dorsey's office and then back to Lovely. Thank you so much.

[Madison Tam (Office of Supervisor Matt Dorsey)]: Thank you, Jacob. Good afternoon, president zone commissioners. Madison Tam from the office of supervisor Matt Dorsey. The supervisor is excited to partner on this legislation with the mayor's office and supervisor of Mahmood. This will help enable projects to move forward in both District 6 and District 5. And as you know, enabling housing projects in the pipeline is one of supervisor Dorsey's top priorities. This area is particularly important not only because of its contributions to our citywide housing goals, but also of its strategic location as a transit hub and the entrance to our downtown and civic center. Bringing new homes to this neighborhood will fulfill a nearly two decades long vision, support small businesses and jobs, contribute to our tax base, and move the needle on downtown recovery. And supervisor Dorsey often says that there is no downtown recovery without a mid market recovery. While tremendous project while while tremendous progress has been made on housing production in this area, we are at an impasse. As you saw, many projects have stalled since 2020, and nobody, not the city or residents, benefit from vacant lots and holes in the ground installed projects. This legislation will waive fees that have put projects in this area at a disadvantage compared to other projects that don't have those additional fees that were discussed. OEWD and the supervisor's office has done extensive community engagement, and we look forward to continuing conversations about this legislation as it moves forward. Thank you.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: So Jacob touched on a lot of the contents of the proposal. I'll add a bit, and then we're all available to answer any questions. So in regards to the fees, Market Octavia is one of our seven plan areas that have geographic based impact fees to fund both infrastructure and affordable housing. As Jacob mentioned, projects within the Market Octavia plan area are subject to two fees in infrastructure and affordable housing. And then projects within the SUD are subject to three additional fees. In addition, all of these fees pay the citywide fees related to affordable housing, transportation, childcare, and arts. Just for comparison, when we look at Market Octavia compared to Eastern neighborhoods, which only has one infrastructure fee, and Central SoMa, which has two, an infrastructure and a community facilities fee. This legislation would sunset all area planned fees, and the citywide fees would continue to apply. The sunset of the area plan fees does mean the loss of a specific funding source for capital projects, so we're very aware of that. And while the majority of the projects that have been identified in the plan have been delivered I think this really illustrates the success of the plan there are projects that remain unfunded. And we've heard concerns from community members about the fate of these unfunded projects. For some reassurance, these all these projects are well documented in the area plan. We refer to this appendix C all the time. And this list, you know, really represents the advocacy and the buy in that we've had from both community members and our partner agencies. And we actually report on the status of these projects every year in the EPIC report. So these projects are not going away. They continue to be top of mind. The issue really before us is that the city has been struggling with impact fees as an imperfect solution to fund improvements because the timing and the availability of funds is unreliable. If these funds do sunset, it doesn't mean that these projects won't happen. As Jacob mentioned, we've been really working with our partner agencies that we've been able to deliver them with other sources. The second topic is there are some amendments to the Van Nessen Market Special Use District. These amendments are really technical in nature related to the fee changes, with the exception of it would remove the formula retail restriction and the retail use size limitation. So right now in the SUD, those rules are much more restrictive than in the rest of the C3G District. And in 2023, we made changes to allow more flexibility. So this would remove the formula retail restriction and the use size limitation only within the SUD. There's no other changes to the rest of the Market Octavia plan area. That includes Upper Market and Hayes Valley. It would also remove the required ratio of nonresidential to residential. Right now in the SUD, there is a required ratio, and this just provides utmost flexibility. So you can build a housing project, commercial project, a mixed use project. And this change is consistent with other changes we've made across the city to provide more flexibility for all types of projects. The third change to the SUD would be to remove the FAR limit for residential uses. Because the SUD affordable housing fees are based on FAR, these FAR limits are no longer needed. This change would make the FAR rules for residential and commercial consistent with the rest of the C3 District. And finally, because the affordable housing impact fees are proposed to sunset, the language in the SUD about affordable housing fees are no longer needed and are proposed to be removed. Again, the citywide inclusionary requirements would still apply to all of these projects. And then the last topic in this ordinance is around the Market Octavia CAC. So this ordinance proposes a sunset clause to the CAC. As we've mentioned, the CAC was established in 2007 with the adoption of the area plan. The sunset clause was not included in the original legislation, unlike the Eastern Neighborhood CAC and the SoMa CAC, two other community advisory committees which were established with a sunset clause. In 2021, the board of supervisors added a new rule that which requires that all ordinances creating a body had to contain a sunset clause. So this CAC has been out of compliance with that rule for quite some time. The ordinance proposes adding a sunset date of six months to account for the fact that the CAC's primary responsibility is to prioritize the implementation of community improvements funded with impact fees. Without impact fees to program and the fact that most infrastructure projects have been that were envisioned in the plan have been delivered, we see that the CAC has largely served its purpose. For comparison, the Eastern Neighborhood CAC, which was established one year after the Market Octavia CAC and had in a similar purview sunset in January 2024. In addition, it's been challenging to maintain a fully seated CAC and retain quorum. The CAC had quorum 13 out of the last 22 meetings and did not have quorum to vote on the expenditure plan, which is their primary purview the last two years. This legislation, as Jacob mentioned, was shared at the June 16 CAC meetings. Some members expressed support. No members expressed opposition at that hearing. We did receive one letter in opposition that was included in your packet. Since then, we've received five more letters. Three letters have really shared concerns about the fate of the unfunded projects, and two letters have expressed support. Those letters have been forwarded to you and are also posted online. In summary, the department recommends approval of this legislation. That concludes my presentation, and myself and others are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

[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 item.

[Mark Babson (Emerald Fund)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Mark Babson, president of Emerald Fund. We are San Francisco housing developers. Been around forty five years. Developed over 3,000 homes in San Francisco, including 1,000 Civic Center and eight forty eight in the Van Ness Market SUD, the 100 Van Ness and one fifty Van Ness. We are currently working on 1 Oak. That's one of the big towers that's, been entitled and proposed. We're also working on putting more units on it. This is with the lender that took back ownership. There's currently 460 approved, and we we are in for 540 to include increase by 80. We also run the pro formas for this project. It is nowhere near penciling. It's really construction costs that are driving things plus the fees. Like, this little note of Market Octavia just has so many fees layered on. If these fees went away, it will become much closer to financial feasibility. We're not there. It's not like it would start construction tomorrow. But it's a huge number, these five different fees that are layered on. So I encourage you. It will lead to more housing. It'll pay affordable housing fees. And the property taxes will go way up. So it would be a help to the city to remove these fees. Thank you.

[Robin Levitt (Hays Valley resident/CAC member)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Robin Levitt. I'm a thirty plus year resident of Hays Valley. I chaired the three campaigns to replace the Central Freeway with Octavia Boulevard. I participate in the crafting and adoption of the Market Octavia plan and have been a member of the Market Octavia CAC since its inception in 2008. I'm here to address the proposed sunsetting of community impact fees and the Market Octavia CAC. I concur with a letter that you received from Professor Jason Henderson that for all the reasons he mentioned in his letter, I believe that this item should be continued. Despite what, Jacob just said, with regard to the market activity impact fees, given all the economic and social factors affecting development, it's unclear if removing them will make any difference. Given the complexity of the issue, targeting these fees feels a little bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If more housing and tax revenue is the stated goals, why has the city left five former freeway parcels along Octavia Boulevard slated for housing, one for affordable housing, undeveloped and vacant for over twenty years. Regarding the sunsetting of the CAC, the body has two roles. One is to provide community input put on dispersal funds for community improvement projects in the Market Octavia area. The other is to make sure development, including community improvements, is consistent with the with and furthers the goals of the Market Octavia plan. Reflecting on the CAC's work over the past seventeen years, many things have been accomplished, but there are so many projects left undone and incomplete that haven't made the epic lists. Living alleys, two way haze, the freeway tear down commission commemoration, maintenance of Octavia Boulevard and Patricia's Green, traffic mitigation, bicycle safety, studying the removal of the rest of the central freeway, and as mentioned, infill housing on the remaining vacant former freeway parcels. Who or what entity is going to advocate for and serve as a voice for the community on these and other projects in the Market Octavia plan area if the CAC is disbanded? Until there's evidence that removing the impact fees will help jump start stalled housing development, until funding sources for projects critical to the success of the Market Octavia plan have been identified and secured, Until I am confident there will be a vehicle for community advocacy on projects critical to the success of the Market Octavia plan

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Thank you, sir.

[Lydia So (President)]: I

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: That is

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: correct.

[Robin Levitt (Hays Valley resident/CAC member)]: That this item be continued. Thank you very much.

[Lucas Wang (Resident)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Lucas Wang. I've been a resident and renter of San Francisco since moving here four years ago. I've been a resident of the Market at Activia plant. Specifically, I've been living in the hub since, beginning of last year. I gotta say, it's a great area to live for the most part. I have access to the Muni, I can take the N to the Sunset, whatever I want, take the 49 up, Van Ness, swing by Apple Cinema that just opened, or head downtown on any of the Muni lines going that direction. And I think it's a great place where we should be building more housing and enabling the development of more housing. Now, on the topic of these impact fees that we're discussing today, I will say I've been a beneficiary of what the impact fees have done for the community so far in terms of the infrastructure around the parks and generally around. But I also say, I've been a I've been experiencing the cost of these community fees, especially since I moved to the city. As it's been stated, there's not been much development since 2020. There's 2,700 units that are ready to be be developed, but are not being developed, and that has impacted my community specifically. Take a walk down Van Ness, go to Van Nessen Market, then come down to where I live on Van Nessen Market or Van Nessen Mission. You'll notice a big difference between Van Nessen Market and Van Nessen Mission, and that is primarily because of what I believe is one has developed lots, one does not. If you look at Van Nessen Market, you'll notice the street conditions there are pretty bad. They're a place for police enforcement that we've seen and that is a cost to our city, but also to the quality of life whenever I have to go and navigate through those street streets and sidewalks to get to work or to really just access the muni system in general. I believe that if we enable more housing and development on these lots that already have entitlements for housing by lowering the cost for development there, we can improve the quality of life for everyone. And again, lower the cost to the community, not just for the quality, but also for the law enforcement that's needed in that area and for cleaning. One more area that I'd like to talk about, which I'm grateful that commissioner Williams Moore and Imperial brought up around the area plan, the zoning, but specifically around affordable housing. There are 2,700 units here, and a good chunk of that is also affordable housing units. Please consider that when you're talking about the removal of the affordable fees here. There are units that are ready to be developed here and that cannot be or because it's not penciling out. And by removing these fees, we'll enable the development of more housing, specifically affordable housing as

[Lydia So (President)]: well. Thank you.

[Jane Natoli (YIMBY Action)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Jane Natoli. I am the San Francisco organizing director for UMB Action. I will not be using all three of my minutes. I'm here to speak in support today. I think this is a good way of approaching how do we promote more housing development. We know that there's always going to be tradeoffs. And when we look at that, we see that these fees can sometimes get in the way of our good intentions. So I do think that this is something that will help promote economic activity. When we get more people in this area, more is going to happen. I think that that's generally what we want to see moving forward. I think we have people who are kind of ready to go with some of these proposals, and

[Lydia So (President)]: it would be great if we could do that. But we have some blockers in

[Jane Natoli (YIMBY Action)]: the way, and so we have to balance that. That's part of our job. I think that on the balance, they've done a good job of trying to find where we can do that, right? We do know that new residents bring new tax revenue. They open new businesses. They do all sorts of great things for our city. So making it easier for more people to live here is a good thing. Thank you.

[Scott Feeney (Transportation and housing advocate)]: Hello, commissioners. My name is Scott Feeney. I'm a San Francisco resident and transportation and housing advocate. I note that the goal of this legislation is to jump start housing production. I agree strongly with that goal. However, I'm gonna ask you to continue this because for three reasons. One, because it's not clear that this is actually going to jump start housing at all. Two, because the, the the funding that would be lost for, transportation and livability improvements is significant, and there's no replacement identified. And three, because I'm concerned about the potential impacts on a key affordable housing project in Hays Valley, which would be, the parcel k, next to Patricia's Green. So to start with, like, when I heard about this and I was looking at the report, I was really stunned to see how many projects have been funded through these fees. So on page two of the report, it notes that since the market in Octavia plan was adopted, the city has collected almost 54,000,000 in impact fees to fund improvements to parks, streets, transportation, and childcare, and goes on to list some of those projects. And some of those include projects that have made a huge difference in my life getting around the city. The Page Street Neighbor Way is one of them. It's made biking on Page Street much better. The Van Ness BRT is one that I use frequently and then the Polk Street bike lane I used to get here today. So $54,000,000 has funded all of those and many more projects that I'd run out of time for my comment if I listed them all. And this legislation would eliminate 46,000,000 in funding. So almost as much as funded all of those things put together. Now I know that the projects could still move forward, But realistically, like, for example, the Slow Streets program in SFMTA currently has, I believe, like, only two full time staff. And that's a program that's comparable to the Neighborways program. So we're talking about, like, funding for, like, decades of this low streets program under current budgets being eliminated. But I think to to to kind of wrap up, I think the most important thing here is that we don't yet know if this really is going to unlock housing. We don't actually know that this is the the bottleneck. And we have some evidence that it might not be. One of the previous speakers, even though they're in favor and a developer, said that even with this, they wouldn't be ready to get going. So we need to consider, I think, the possibility that if we pass this with the well intentioned goal of jump starting housing, what might end up happening is housing still doesn't get created because of much larger blockers like interest rates, construction costs. And then when it eventually does get unblocked, we have $4,046,000,000 less for the public realm in affordable housing. So I think you should continue this and get more clarity on that. Thank you.

[David Kim (San Francisco YIMBY volunteer)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is David Kim. I'm a volunteer lead for San Francisco YIMBY. I am speaking in favor of removing the fees. But I speak myself as a renter who is concerned about the state of housing in the city and whether or not we as renters will be able to afford housing in the future or whether or not I as a new a new father, I just my son was born just last month, and we have every intention of raising him here in San Francisco as to whether or not we will be able to find stable family housing for my son to settle down and go to school here and become a San Franciscan just like the rest of us. So I also want to respect a lot of the concerns about removing the fees. I acknowledge that the fees might be a good source of revenue for things that we need. I acknowledge that I acknowledge the importance of impact fees in principle, in general. But throughout the course of my activism with UNB Action, we have seen fees stacked upon fees, perhaps used in a way that they were not intended. And for us, what they amount to is less revenue generation for needed services or maybe affordable housing projects and more of a cudgel to slow down the production of housing. I too care about our fiscal responsibilities. I think being able to unlock housing production just a little bit more can be conducive to welcoming more residents to our great city and and allowing more property tax revenue to flow as well. In any case, and sorry, the last thing I'll acknowledge is that I don't think any single policy or any single fee addition or removal may make or break the future of housing in the city. But, also during the course of my activism, it's one of a myriad number of factors that pile upon itself to really dictate whether or not housing gets built in the city. So therefore, I'm against the or sorry, I support the removal of these fees, and I hope I hope I hope you'll understand that it is part of the larger housing prospect of of our city. So thank you for your attention.

[Charlie Atolli (SF YIMBY volunteer)]: Hi. My name is Charlie Atolli. I'm a volunteer with SF Yimbi. So I wanted to voice my strong support for removing these fees. First of all, I've had to move a couple times in the last few years, and I can say from personal experience, rents are definitely climbing and housing is getting more scarce. So, for example, when I was moving last, I checked the place I lived in three years ago, and the same unit that I used to live in was listed for $800 more. Not because that unit had changed in any way, just because housing has become scarcer. It does seem like these fees are likely to be blocking a lot of these projects in the mid market in Octavia area. And therefore, by making these fees house by making this housing unfeasible, we're actually harming affordability in a lot of ways, both by blocking new market rate housing that would ease the overall rents and by blocking a ton of affordable units that would have been built in these buildings, and lastly, by losing out on all that other tax revenue that these buildings would create, that we're then delaying and possibly not gonna have at all. Specifically for me, I would love to the chance to live along Market Street, near the Castro one day, and I'm really excited for more housing near there. Number one, it's really close to a lot of our muni lines that we know are struggling with ridership. Number two, both Castro and Western SoMa are really important centers of queer life. And I would love to make it more easy for more people to live nearby both of those two incredibly special places. Like in Harvey Milk's time, there used to be this idea that queer people could just come and move to San Francisco. And I think that's kind of an empty promise now that the Castro is one of the most expensive inclusionary neighborhoods in our city, and our city is one of the most expensive and inclusionary cities in the entire country. So therefore, I don't think these fees are are really they're well intentioned, but not currently creating the outcome that we want San Francisco to be. So overall, I think for the sake of affordability, for the sake of building more housing and improving our city, I would like to ask you offer my strong support towards removing these fees. Thank you.

[Kyle Smeallie (Policy Director, SF Community Land Trust)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Kyle Smele. I'm the policy director for the San Francisco Community Land Trust. We're a member organization of the Council of Community Housing Organizations. I'm also a longtime resident of the Hays Valley neighborhood, here to voice my concern on the proposal to waive development impact fees from the Market and Octavia Area Plan. At a time when funds to create affordable housing are drying up at every level of government, the idea of eliminating tens of millions of dollars in impact fees is deeply concerning. Just last week, this commission held an informational hearing that emphasized how much lack of funding is the number one barrier to advancing affordable housing, including at least 3100% affordable projects within the market in Octavia area plan that are currently stalled. Waiving fees doesn't get us closer to solving the housing crisis. It gets us further away. These impact fees were the product of careful planning, community input, and a clear eyed understanding that growth must be accompanied by investment. Investment in infrastructure, green space, transit, and especially affordable housing. To unravel that agreement now with no replacement funding betrays that process and public trust. We urge the commission to continue this item until there is a transparent, independent analysis of its impact, not just on market rate feasibility, but on equity, livability, and long term affordability in this rapidly changing part of the city. San Francisco needs more tools and more funding to preserve and produce deeply affordable housing, not fewer. Thank you.

[Brianna Morales (SF Housing Action Coalition)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Brianna Morales with the Housing Action Coalition as their community organizer, and I'm here to speak in support of the proposal. As everyone has said before, San Francisco is in a housing crisis where families are leaving and small businesses are struggling, and too many young people who grew here grew up here don't see a future for themselves in the city. We have over 2,500 homes already approved in this part of the city, but they're not getting built, And they're not stuck for lack of vision or planning, but because the economics just don't pencil out. And while these fees were really carefully thought of and put forward in the current climate where the market was at the time, we're no longer in that market. It's really important to understand that these additional local impact fees are layered upon the base wide city fees that already apply. At HACC, we support impact fees when projects are feasible and believe to capture value when there's value to be captured. But today, nothing is getting built, and that mean that that means that no fees are being collected, and there's no homes being delivered, and there's no communities that are being strengthened through the housing that we advocate for. By encouraging housing through this proposal, we'll be able to continue to collect these baseline fees and be able to fund the things that are very important to people like transportation and arts and childcare centers. We put out a petition because we understand that it's really hard for folks to be out here on a Thursday at noon, and we've we're able to hear from a 144 San Franciscans who are in support of this proposal and are excited to see homes being built

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: in this

[Brianna Morales (SF Housing Action Coalition)]: area. And we also just wanna say that, you know, that that homes brings about people that are able to contribute to neighborhood, community, strengthening muni, and all of these pieces are connected. We can't wait for the perfect moment. We need to take a first step, and this proposal is a smart place to start. When the market improves, we'll be here to revisit those economic conditions at that time, But right now, we really need to get housing moving. So thank you for your support, and we hope to see this proposal move forward.

[Vladimir (Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Vladimir, and I'm the transportation and planning chair of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association. I'm here to talk about the potential sunsetting of the Mark and Octavia impact fees. So we all want to unlock the construction of more housing. Housing is, in fact, the backbone of the MNO plan that HVNA helped shape together with SF planning and support its adoption way back in 2007. Want the potential sunsetting of fees to be done thoughtfully and with proper outreach. Respectfully, that has not happened. Today, HPNA is asking the board to continue this item so that there's adequate time to understand the implications of what sunsetting these fees mean to the residents within the market and Octavia plan. I reached out to OEWD, and we have a meeting scheduled for the August. This was something that I had to push for because this agenda item and the ask for your vote today is being speed run through. I asked OEWD if they know the dollar amount of potential fees that the city would be foregoing with, pipeline projects, and they didn't have a number offhand. What is the amount of potential citywide impact fees that we would capture instead? No answer on hand. We have to have a holistic understanding of the trade offs. What's the rush? Sunsetting these fees need to come with commitments from developers that they will indeed build in a specified time frame and not just sell entitled projects for a higher dollar amount and ask for endless extensions. I want to thank you in advance for your thoughtfulness on this matter. This potential sunsetting needs to be done with a level of attention care that requires at its very minimum an initial dialogue which hasn't happened yet. Please continue this item until its implications on the community can be properly understood. Thank you.

[Jim Warshaw (Van Ness Corridor Neighborhoods Coalition)]: My name is Jim Warshaw. And before I get into my other, diversions of thought, my primary thing today is really to ask you to continue it for all the reason that Vladimir just said. You know, it was nice to hear, supervisor Dorsey say and say that there's been extensive outreach. I'm in d five and I've had none. So that's not

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: the case. Speak a

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: little louder, please. Thank you.

[Jim Warshaw (Van Ness Corridor Neighborhoods Coalition)]: D five has not had what you would call aggressive outreach on this. It does feel like this is being ram rotted through. And therefore, the need to have this continued now is imminent. Hearing all the comments that have been made, I really don't disagree with anybody. The only thing that I disagree with is you should vote on it now. We need housing. Just do it because it might get some housing. I've been in this area for twenty two years, and I was part of the Market Octavia plan with the extensive community outreach that was done there. And it's a fabulous plan. It has had tremendous success. And it should have continued successes in the future. We're proud of all the housing it's built. We've welcomed our neighbors. We want there to be more. The blight that's at the hub is inexcusable. And, you know, we've done extensions. We've done adoptions, you know, for 1 Oak, for 30 South Van Ness, going from 400 to 600, and now request for 800 feet, which I don't oppose. All of these things are fine. We want the housing built. We need it. It shouldn't mean that we're throwing away the development fees that were so thoughtfully done and have produced so many benefits. As Mr. Levitt detailed, there's so much more that's in the hopper that hasn't been done because of the slowdown from COVID and other things that have, slowed the process. So I would ask you first and foremost continue this. We need more discussion. Secondly, be creative in your thinking. If the real goal is to get things built, especially the pipeline 2,700 units, let's look at it not only as carrots, but carrots and sticks. We've had all these benefits go to the developers when they say it doesn't pencil out. Let's give them timelines. These will be reduced or eliminated if you can perform in a prescribed timeline. That might actually get something built, which is, I think, everybody's goal. Let's look at it. Let's find a creative solution and get stuff built. Thank you.

[Tracy Friedman (Resident/Business owner)]: My name is Tracy Friedman. I'm just a concerned citizen who's lived in the city over forty years. I've owned a business here that produced quite a lot of tax income for the city. I have bought several bought and sold houses. I'm an affluent person. I have children who have left and moved to the East Bay even though they earn highly professional salaries because it is an unaffordable place to live. And it is a place that we all love, and it says no too often. I am not sure this is the be all end all issue around housing production that I would like to address. We all know the elephant in the room is our property tax revenue. Prop 13 takes all the money keeps the money from funding important development and infrastructure. These patch ons that San Francisco has successfully used in times of 1% interest rates and, you know, boom, are not going to work every time we need an infrastructure improvement. I just think we have to be open to the idea of giving a strong signal and saying, we want housing development. And this neighborhood is an opportunity to do that and to still maintain most of the issues, most of this supports for transit and affordable housing that we already have. If affordable housing were being so beautifully funded by these additional impact fees, we would have seen more. So let's be honest. It's time to send a strong signal and get the block unblocked. Thank you.

[Jenny Gebhart (Resident)]: Good afternoon. My name is Jenny Gebhart, and I'm here to speak in support of waiving these fees and building more housing. The last time I was here delivering public comment, I was nine months pregnant. Today, you heard from my husband, six four guy, I can't miss him, a few minutes ago, and then he ran outside to relieve me at the stroller so I could come. We actually came here straight from my son's pediatrician appointment. So I'm seeing the city with completely new eyes now. Right? I've always invoked, like, yes, so families can live here. And I'm like, I'm the family. Right? So people can live in the place where they're raised. I hope that my son, born in San Francisco up the street at CPMC, will be raised here. We we like to stay in San Francisco. It's our dream to raise our son here. I can't imagine anything better. And then we'd like him to be able to live here or wherever he wants in the future when he's ready to move out, something I can't imagine now that he's a newborn. I I think I'll go with him when that happens.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: But but I say all that to

[Jenny Gebhart (Resident)]: tell you that I am seeing the city with completely new eyes. I'm so thrilled to tell you about it, and I hope you'll support the proposition to waive these fees and build more housing for families and kids like me and my son. Amazing.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. That's gonna be a hard one to follow. But my name is good afternoon, commission. My name is Phil Watkins. I'm with Smith Emory San Francisco, a 121 year old, company here in the city. I wanna speak on behalf of waiving the fees. The amount of people that this could put to work, residents of this very city who this could put to work if we start developing a little bit more, and this would encourage that. We need to get it moving. That's all. Thank you.

[Quintin Mackey (Council of Community Housing Organizations)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Quintin Mackey with the Council of Community Housing Organizations. I found it notable in the staff report that it's not until page five that we actually talk about the price tag. So it's $46,000,000 Now I also want to ground you. A month ago, you received a report from your own staff, the planning department, talking about feasibility. Government constraints and fees are not a driver of whether or not a development moves forward. It's in your own report. Economic conditions, construction costs, labor costs, material costs, rent and sales price are the primary drivers. How we're suddenly having a conversation where we take away these fees that have been negotiated with community that have worked for years in this project area and suddenly pretend that that will unlock 2,600 units is simply false. Either create and or work on a study that shows the direct impact, but the idea that none of the city staff that presented to you talked about the $46,000,000 They're going to hide the number. We're not going to talk about it. We're going to pretend as if it's actually there's not a cost to this decision. And there is. And so I would strongly recommend, along with my neighbors down the hill, Hays Valley Neighborhood Association, to continue this item for further study and really understand the impact that removing these fees, dollars 46,000,000. I will repeat it again for those in the back because it's a lot of money at a time of deep economic downturn. And your own staff has shown that fees themselves are and government constraints are not a driver as to this as to the reason about development. So for all of the YIMBY folks and all the pro development folks that this is some miracle change or shift, it's just simply not grounded in any reality. So before this moves forward in any shape or form, let's actually have a decision around what this looks like, especially as we're talking about, the future of what it pays for, affordable housing and all of the improvements. I live up the hill on Animal Square. Hays Valley has been transformed in the last twenty years. It's been transformed because it has worked hand in hand with the planning department, with city government to create and mold a neighborhood that works for everybody. Let's continue that model, and let's not undo it now.

[David Wu (SOMA Pilipinas)]: Hello, commissioners. David Wu with Soma Filipinas, the Filipino Cultural Heritage District. Yeah. I just wanted to comment just in general on the concept of area plans, which in general was there's an area and it's upzoned and rezoned, which gives increased value to the land, which can then be realized by private developers and often real estate speculators. And area plans were supposed to provide community benefits through area specific impact fees and policies. And cutting fees will not change the global market dynamics that are directing finance capital in San Francisco, but it will get rid of necessary community infrastructure such as affordable housing. And this legislation also would set a dangerous precedent for the many area plans that went through years of community engagement such as the Central Selma Plan, which we have already seen change with little public process. Area plans, which in the first place gave away much more to private development than the community ever gets back, these area plans stand in contrast also to the citywide upzoning plan that doesn't even start to begin to address the giveaway in value that the upzoning creates or the need for increased infrastructure or mitigation measures. Thank you.

[Jim Abrams (Counsel to Crescent Heights)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Jim Abrams. I'm legal counsel to Crescent Heights, the project sponsor of the residential development at 10 South NS. It's also commonly known as the Honda site. There was a Honda dealership there at one point. Seems like quite a long time ago now. This project is also well known because it purchased and donated to the city, the the site at 16th And Mission that was at next to the BART Station. It is next to the BART Station that was subject to a relatively controversial market rate housing project. So it already has provided its affordable housing benefit to the city in in quite a strong manner. We're here to ask for your support for this ordinance. It will help, to assist in the feasibility of the project. I think a couple things to note. First, this or this ordinance does not waive the the transit sustainability fee. So these projects, if they are actually built, will provide millions and millions of dollars to MTA for its, Muni operations. The projects are also subject to the city's, affordable housing obligations or requirements. So, I think there's a implication here that these projects would not be contributing to transportation and housing, and in fact, they would be. Thank you very much.

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

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Lebron?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: First of all, thanks to everybody who came out to speak on this item. It's clearly getting a lot of attention in the community. I had an opportunity to speak with Lee Latinsky, Jacob Bintliff, and Lily Langlois about this item and to ask a few questions about it previously. And I think I have one question that actually has just kind of occurred to me. So I have a I'm curious. This legislation, there's been the word sunset used for the fees, and then there's also primarily throughout our packet been the word waiver being described. And from what I can tell from any legislation, this is this is a waiver of the fees, but it's essentially waiving them to be zero. And and the sunset terminology implies this being permanent. But could somebody speak to that, though? I mean, is this a waiver and the fees are still in the books, or is it actually eliminating the fees entirely from any sort of legal existence?

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: Yeah. Thank you, commissioner, for that clarification. It's structured in the planning code amendments as a waiver because we have these pipeline projects that have already been assessed the fees, and so you need to structure that as a waiver of that current obligation. We're we're using the term sunsetting to talk about projects in the future no longer having to pay the fees. So it will apply to both categories, but from an ordinance perspective, it is structured as a waiver of the fees.

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

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: Can I just add one thing? But the fees still exist in the planning code. So we're not removing four sixteen or four twenty four. So if in some moment in time there was a desire to bring the fees back, that would be a simple amendment. So they still exist, but they are not being applied to pipeline projects or future projects.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you. I mean, clearly, from the the nature of the discussion of the packet, the intention is essentially to eliminate them in a way. But it's helpful for me to to know that they're still in the books, and I'll get to that. But so I don't have a lot more questions. I think my I have a lot of thoughts. You know, I these fees in Market Octavia, you know, those date back to the plan's adoption. We have the the fees in the Van Ness SUD, date to a little bit more recent. You know, there's I think there's a lot of compelling reasons to reexamine these fees right now. And I just wanna put it out there that, these fees are not intended to be fixed forever. You know, when there is a robust planning process behind these these fees being applied. And, you know, there is, I think, there is a reasonable point being made here about the expanded development capacity in the area plan that complements these fees. And the principle is you should be able to you know, extract some of that value to fund improvements in the area where there's intensification happening. And so I I I think, you know, I I don't wanna lose sight of that. But at the same time, when these fees are conceived and applied, there is a process behind them also of looking at what can be supported by development. And I'm just going to say, back in late twenty sixteen, early January, early twenty seventeen, my employer actually worked with the city on looking at what could be supported in the SUD. The memo was on the fine department's website. And so it's not as if these fees were even at that time just conceived out of thin air. They were taking into consideration what could actually be supported under current market conditions. I like to say that we predicted a global pandemic, complete shift in the economy in 2017, but no, we did not. The the findings of that analysis that that helped inform some of the fees in the SED are irrelevant today under these very different conditions right now. So I don't wanna act like the amount of the fee is somehow set in stone and the intention was that's how it should be forever. And so I'm just sort of ticking down my list of why I think it makes sense to readdress these fees. I mean, $20,000 to $60,000 per housing unit is very substantial. And so I want to point that out. But at the same time and I also see the points have been made, the total fee contribution, fee revenue contribution to projects in the area is just one piece of the puzzle and often a smaller piece of the puzzle for getting those projects built. A lot of the projects already have been built that were in the plan. And the projects that that keep going forward. They'll still have the the city's, citywide fees and requirements applied to them, including inclusionary housing and then in lieu fees for that. And one thing that I thought was very interesting that came up in some of my conversations with staff is that the the when this plan, the market in Octavia plan was approved, a specific plan opened up a lot more capacity than this. But the EIR for that plan actually included 4,440 units by 2025. And it actually has built 4,000 there's been 4,800 units built in it. So we actually it's been a very successful plan from the perspective of getting a lot of housing developed beyond even the EIRs, what was envisioned at that time. But I'll also point out, you know, that all happened, almost all of that happened pre pandemic, pre 2020. I mean, that was an amazing boom at the time, but it has not happened for a long time since then. So these are all things I'm thinking about for why it makes sense to revisit and adjust the fees right now. But I also want to acknowledge that I'm also being very cautious about this. And I'm unsure whether I'm on board with the idea of a 100% waiver of these fees, an all or nothing, here's where they are today, and now we make them zero kind of approach. Because, again, we did add a lot of capacity in this area. And I do think it is appropriate to anticipate development, contribute when we're really transforming a place and allowing it to be transformed like that. This is an area that I think, you know, yes, we'll have the citywide requirements even if the fees are removed. But this is a different market area for me. This is a different sub market. It's It's an area that the city that has excellent access to transit, excellent access to jobs. It is one of the places that I think will be highly desirable again in the future when market conditions do improve. And I think that even a modest fee revenue can still make a slight difference in delivering projects, which we saw last week when or I think it was last week when we allocate funding out of the downtown parks fund. And that was enough to get visioning going for the Embarcadero area Embarcadero Plaza area. It was enough to kind of move the needle on final work to get the park at 6th And Folsom, the rec center moving forward. So I I do I wanna hear what other commissioners have to say on this. My thinking right now is leaning towards a recommendation of generally supporting the legislation except not making it a complete waiver, but perhaps reducing the amount of the fees and looking at what would be appropriate there. I just want to leave it with this thought that you know, right now, a fee on nothing is nothing. Right? But developing conditions can change very quickly, as we've seen. In this case, downward. But when things improve, that can also change very quickly. And we need some sort of tool in place to still, capture some benefit from that. So that's that's kinda where I'm at right now.

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

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for coming out. It's not an easy meeting to get to. I was also going to

[Lydia So (President)]: start with a congratulations because this to me feels like it was a real this

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: is a real success story. This obviously, the 4,800 units, 1,700 of them affordable, not to mention all of the infrastructure upgrades we were able to make as a result of it. It's fantastic. But this is a different time than when we set out in the beginning and and set this up, and it the world is a different place. I think it's so sobering to hear how the these fees are getting in the way of future projects moving forward. There's been five years there was, like, rapid development and then five years of basically nothing. And, of course, there's a lot that factors into it. But I think the impact fees in in our city, I think we it's pretty extraordinary the amount of impact fees that we, that we put on projects. And, and it seems it was surprising to me to see that this particular plan had five additional impact fees. And I was and I apologize I didn't ask this in advance, but I was curious how that compares to perhaps some other area plans or special use districts in the city. Because we have our citywide impact fees. Those are not going away. How do these five additional impact fees compare, say, to what other areas of the city where we're seeing development? I don't know if anyone from the team can speak to that.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: I think without crunching numbers and being better prepared you

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: on the spot.

[Lydia So (President)]: I think

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: this is one of the highest areas. It has the most fees. Obviously, the rates are different, and the rates are structured based in some area plans, based on how much height was given at the time of rezoning. But overall, I would say this is the highest.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: And while I've got you, you mentioned that we're not sunsetting them, but they're actually sort of, like, being tucked to the side and can be resurrected.

[Lydia So (President)]: Can you talk through a little bit in

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: terms of that just to speak to that earlier comment about, you know, what if things get better? What if it starts to pick up? Can you walk us through Yeah.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: So like what

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: that might look like?

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: So structurally, planning code section four twenty four, which is the affordable housing fee in the SUD, that sec that code section still exists. We are not touching that code section at all. But what we are doing is we're amending in a different part of article four to say that that fee in section four twenty four does not apply to pipeline projects or future projects. Does that help?

[MOHCD Representative (Affordable Housing)]: I think just

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: I feel like we if we were I'm in favor of of the amendments, and I I do there's a curiosity around, like, well, what if things were to pick up because to me, it's unlocking all these projects that, that are not moving forward. Perhaps there's, an opportunity to revisit that down the road and would that be, an easier conversation or thing to implement structurally based on how we're, you know, approaching the amendments?

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: I mean, I think that's why we've left the fees in place because then it would be a much longer ordinance for everyone to read when we do craft the new fees. So that leaves the option for the future.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Perfect. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Let's see if I had

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: any other comments. There's other things baked in here. We haven't spent too much time talking about them, but the or there's only one commissioner that's spoken so far, but the amendments related to the retail controls, land use mix, cleaning up some language around the FAR and inclusionary requirements, those feel those feel very straightforward to me, so I don't have too much to say about those. And then we've got the community advisory committee. I think it's actually pretty telling that when you went to go speak to the committee, you couldn't actually get a quorum to have the conversation. Challenged in in even, having successful committee meetings, and that it's no longer in compliance with how, you know, the board rule around that. So I I I actually am in full support of of sunsetting that, and hope that they can continue to be engaged in in dialogue with the with the department as as projects start to evolve. So generally, I'm in I'm in full support of everything proposed here in terms of the amendments and would make a motion to adopt a recommendation for approval.

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

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commission of vice president Moore.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I want to express my appreciation for an extremely balanced conversation between the two normally opposing parties, that is the neighborhoods organization itself as well as the MBs. I think in the end, we are talking about the same goal. It's just a question, how do we go about achieving it? I am actually proposing that we take continuance because I believe that the majority of people who will decide here do not fully understand or appreciate the depth that went into the equation of the market of TV plan. I look to those people who stood here more than between 2007 and '9 now, who who who put their blood, sweat, and tears into making an extremely successful plan, not only is the plan itself successful, but what it what it has created is one of the most remarkable newer neighborhoods in San Francisco that has thoroughly been shining during COVID, which did not have the vacancy and the blight that other neighborhoods neighborhoods encountered, and I believe that that does not come without a price. And I'm personally not prepared to abolish the fee, the fees and extra considerations that indeed have created the neighborhood. I would like to suggest that all parties continue to really better understand of what was created, what success it brought, and how we can continue supporting this type of success in other neighborhoods. I believe that citywide fees without being significantly raised will not be able to keep up with providing the quality of neighborhood that Market Octavia has created. I believe that densification transfers additional land values to those people who develop, and I do believe that they would have to be more actively participating in continuing the overall infrastructure and the overall amenities that indeed create whole neighborhoods while we develop them. As to whether or not Sophie is picking up on commissioner Brown's comment, need to be temporarily adjusted, considered, or modified is a totally separate question that I'm unable to participate discussing because I do not have the facts. However, I believe that the experience of the of the Market Octavia plan can give guidance to what it takes to look into the future with densification and more people trying to have amenities, have affordable housing, will require a slightly different fee structure than what currently is being levied in other parts of the city. For that reason, I would suggest that there is a continuance, And I do believe that the that everybody who is involved in today's discussion is prepared to come to the table, learn from the market of Travia experience and not just saw it under the bus because it may be easier to perhaps attract one or two projects, but in the end, it will not solve the question of how we build livable neighborhoods in light of the fact that we're significantly densifying the city. That would be my recommendation, so I make a motion to continue. Second.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Nangirio?

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you, commissioner, vice president Moore. I also I'm more leaning to the, to continuance. I have a lot of thoughts on this, and I'm trying to say it all. You know, I've, you know, in the last two years, I've lived I've lived in Hayes Valley and have seen, you know, you know, how lively the neighborhood is. And throughout my, I would say, my my career, my community work, I've, you know, I've be I was part of the Eastern Neighborhood Plan CAC, you know, have attended numerous meetings on the side of market CAC. And so I recognize the importance of the citizen advisory committee and what it means to the area plans. This impact fees, yes. These are there are impact fees that needs to be sunset or part of the sunset as part of the the feasibility study. One part of it is the Rincon Hill. And, you know, again, the the purpose of this impact fees ideologically is that this is a way to give contribution to the community and have the community input in which these developments or infrastructures need to be put on. And I've seen the robust conversation in the CAC. And you can see that people really care on how the park would look like, how the streets would look like. And when you look into the iPic projects, which is given to us every year about the iPic infrastructure, and you see how many projects that have been funded. And at this time, there are projects that are not funded. So as as we you know, as the conversation goes that this is a different market that we are in, we also need to look in when the market is good. And there are many projects that have been funded through the impact fees. And this is the only way that the community can really make improvements. I mean, last week, we had a conversation, and we approved together with the Rec and Park on the facility for the Jean Fran Park and other facilities in the downtown. I don't want that that this conversation to be undermined that impact fees are not contribution to the communities because they are. And part of this too, okay, if the project if this is going, you know again, like, there needs to be thought on this. The loss of 46,000,000, how is that going to be replaced? Is that going to be replaced by an increase in property tax? I mean, there needs to be more conversation on how much are we losing on this. And again, the financial feasibility that was that was given to us, like, last week, the true cost of development and the barrier for development is really the hard cost. And the general impact fees are not actually impactful or barrier for the development. So this, you know, if I'm going to vote now, I will vote no on this. But I know that the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association would like to be part of this conversation or other parts of the community would like to be part of this conversation because they wanna make this work out as well for their community, and they should be given a chance. And if the market of CAC didn't have quorum, I mean, that is also not an excuse to to have more committee engagement. There needs to have a more conversation on this. I'm sorry. I'm very I'm very emotional or stressed maybe in the in this time. You know, I I didn't want to sound like I'm I'm, you know, antagonistic, but these are real conversations that really need to have by the supervisors, to the communities and to the constituents that they represent. They need to take this seriously. And I would I would propose for a continuance and really listen to the community members. The the keratin sticks, they use a lucet that can be a good plan as well. And I would support that, you know, as a commissioner. But the but the bottom line for me is that this should be taken seriously, and there needs to be more committee engagement because it seems like to me that people really wanna work this out. Okay. So that's where I am.

[Lydia So (President)]: Perhaps this is a really good point, commissioner Imperial. Thank you for your really passionate speech. I wonder someone from our own team or OEW can OEWD can speak and about this past five years. What is if there are any community outreach and how do you end it up where we are right now? I'm I'm sure it doesn't happen in silo within City Hall. There's looking at a lot of comments coming in forward today, there is quite a bit of engagement on different stakeholders of wonder if any of would any of you like to speak on that?

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: Yeah. Thank you, commissioners and presidents. So, I mean, I think you have seen over the past five years a number of efforts that the city has undertaken to try to reduce the city imposed cost on these developments. And, you know, everyone is aware that there are a lot of factors outside of our control that have unfortunately continued to cut in the opposite direction. So even though we have reduced fees, you know, we have a lot going on far beyond the boundaries of San Francisco that unfortunately is all going in the negative direction. So what we look at is what are the things that we are able to change. And we know that by reducing the costs that are within our powers, you know, we make that moment of feasibility come sooner when that moment comes. The last thing we would want to do is to find out that everything else has come back into place and that it was actually the city imposed costs that were the things that caused the project not to move forward. So, you know, we've been continuing to look at things. We've take we've been here a number of times with various measures to reform the timing of when fees are charged, for example. And, we have seen that under the current conditions, that has not been sufficient. So that is why when we looked at this area and we saw in particular the projects at the hub, area, which would be if they were able to be a bookend to the downtown, corridor along Market Street and that those are stuck. And as you heard from some of the neighboring residents, the conditions are suffering from that. We saw that more clearly needed to be done. We looked back at the history of the plan. We shared a lot of the success that the plan has been able to provide, and concluded that this was a surgical change to look at only these fees that are within this area that are the area plan fees, while leaving the other citywide fees in effect. So that those fees would be a mechanism for continuing to collect the revenue that would come from these projects. So, yeah. So it has evolved over time and this is the latest step that we're trying to take to deal with the situation that we confront here in San Francisco.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Thanks. Commissioner Montgomery.

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: So I agree with everybody, but the the issue we have here is you've got You go down the road, Nordstrom's gone. Westfield, empty. Might be, or they're moving out, the loss of them. Park, Park, Park fifty five Hotel and the Hilton, we don't know what's going on there. Twitter, is it X, is it Twitter? Either, and the whole ecosystem, it's gone. We've got a carrot and a stick issue here. I think we've got a stick, and we've been utilizing the stick. We're basically, we've got five extra fees on top of, the fees that are normal around the city. I think reducing them, it reintroduced the carrot. The city needs a shop in a shop in the arm. The area itself is extremely depressed. All you have to do is walk down there, and during the day, it's one thing. As soon as it gets in the afternoon, it's a totally different thing. I pass by it first thing in the morning, and I again, on my way home. It's, it's not, it's not a pleasant place to drive through first thing in the morning, or go home in the evening. So, I think we have to take the foot off the gas, release the fees, they're not going away, they can come back, they're gonna stay on the, on the statue. If we could do something about that eyesore that I pass every morning on Octavia at the end of Oak, and the start of fell going up there, that burnt out eyesore. I'm looking at 1 Oak. I've got 500 I've got 541 units, not 540. I don't know if I'm correct on that. You got 30 Van Ness, 300 and thirty three, 10 South Van Ness, that's the Honda dealership, but I think it was before that. It was the old Fillmore, if I'm correct, was up above. So, I'd mentioned that before the Honda dealership. Then basically, 98 Franklin, another $3.45. So that's four projects, and I've got 2,323 units that could get going. I'm also in the construction industry, and we have been in a recession for we've actually in a recession in construction for five plus years. When we're telling ourselves we're not in a recession, our people have been out of work for that length of time. I like I wanna go back to the day when we're driving down driving around downtown, and all you see is crews of construction workers coming and going from work. We haven't seen that in years. Absolute years. Some people here young enough have never seen it at all. But that is a city that's progressing. Right now, we're basically we're we're hemmed in here, and it's it's it's embarrassing driving from one bridge to another when you're actually driving through the hudge at the hub, or what we want to call the hub if we build it. We need to get that built, and I think we were we're done making excuses for it because people are that child that was that lady's child, her son here, he wants to live somewhere who? She wants the ability to move and up grade for for an extra room, for that child, a possible an ex another child. But either and then the $800 that increase on the rent that another person just mentioned earlier on, when they look back at where they used to live, prices are going up, they're not going down. We need inventory. These four projects here are ready to go. I think we should do whatever we can to get them started, and if it's just taking the foot off the gas, the fees for a period of time, when we bounce back out of this, we can actually reinstitute them because they're not going away, they're just shelved. I think we have responsibility to do that, so I'm in full support.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you for your comment. I

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: this is

[Lydia So (President)]: a really robust conversation. I'm glad we have this today. Thank you, everyone, for coming. There are reference pointing, and I believe it was it started in 2020. Things started to really tick a trajectory differently than what we all thought it was those decades prior to that. With respect to history and the effort that going through in the to draft this back then was very helpful to afford us to have a very, nice Hayes Valley, Octavia Market Street that we have younger generation coming back and live there and came out and spoke how grateful they can actually have a place to live there. Now however, now we've been looking at the market for five years now. That's half a decade. Looking at it, well, it will come back. It will come back. What we have done, of course, was a very robust, advocacy to in to add all these impact fees in this particular area of San Francisco. We have seen the success of it, and thank you for the OEWT team and also Lily, our own planning team, described what is the benefit came out of it. Even now we are enjoying the renovation and improvement of the Buchanan Mall. That is a lifetime commitment of improvement projects. However, I'm seeing this as just like similar to the feds is adjusting interest rate to stabilize our economy, we gotta have to look at adjusting some of our city government's funding mechanism to really spur more housing construction and lowering upfront cost to also stabilize our economy. I really appreciate that, Lily, our planning staff, continue to articulate in answering to my fellow commissioner Campbell's questions that the, the backup plan for us in the future that you're keeping the Section four twenty four still exist. So should this our economy come back and picks up and should that be ever needed to reinstate, there's an pretty simple straightforward ways to do it. But, however, right now, I hear that I actually don't know how much of the does it cost to build a unit these days. I think it's more than 1,000,000. Okay. I hear some like, I see some really actively nodding. And we have 270,000 units already approved in the pipeline ready to go. I am continuing to send a message, inconsistency with our mayor's office and the two supervisors who are supporting this, planning code amendment, supervisor Dorsey and supervisor Mamu, we need to encourage and stabilize our economy like yesterday. So I'm in full support of this, and that is my speech. And I will leave it to, I think, commissioner Williams, and then commissioner Braun has something more to say, and then we're ready to vote. Commissioner

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Williams. Thank you. Thank you for everything that's been said. It's a lot of good points. I'm also in favor for the continuance. I think there hasn't been enough community input. And this area plan was all about community. It took many years to implement, and it was very successful. I think we owe that to this community, not to just, you know, run rough rough shot over them. And so, you know, that's one point. So I I'm definitely in, support of a continuance. Secondly, what's really concerning is the affordable housing. And it seems like we continue to take away revenue streams from the affordable housing. And given we actually that's where we need it the most. And don't just take it from me. It's something that's been talked about over and over again. It's in our housing element. We need to be building 57% of our new housing should be affordable for the state goals. And, you know, that conversation, for whatever reason, is kind of taking a back seat. I understand the pipeline needed to be unclogged. I get that. But, you know so we're we're gonna lose all this affordable housing funding, and there's no conversation about how we're gonna replace it. You know, it would be refreshing, to have some new ideas around, how do we fund the affordable housing? Do we use some of the tax? If, in fact, this this goes through and there's tax generated from some of this new development, do we dedicate that tax to funding affordable housing? I mean, I think a lot of the the ideas, the present ideas to fund affordable housing aren't working. And that is just evident in the fact that we haven't been able to produce the amount of affordable housing that we need. Affordable affordability is probably one of the things that I've heard most that are concerned, people that are concerned with in this city. And I think that's where the conversation really should be at. Unfortunately, when times get tough, a lot of times what I've noticed is things that are made or ideas, let's just say, like affordable housing, are the first to get on the chopping block. Right? And I just think that there needs to be more discussion. Again, we're losing $45,000,000 of affordable housing. That's a lot of housing that we desperately need.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: And I wonder sorry. I have

[Lydia So (President)]: one thing to say. I'd like to bring up the

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: And I don't want to be too winded, but I just want to emphasize my concerns. And there has been no conversation again around replacing this funding. And I think there's a reason why this area plan has been successful, and that's kind of going to what I was talking about earlier, in the hearing, where I wanted to kind of, look at some of these area plans and the success, story, of them. And remember, you know, what kind of city are we trying to build because are we planning for? We have to be, you know, understanding that the affordable housing has to be prioritized, has to be a piece of this. We can't, you know, just build for folks that have money. We have to we have to build for everybody. We need everybody in the city. We need low income workers. We need, to to do the jobs that that fuel the city. We need, you know, moderate to to low, income workers, that that, you know, keep the city going. If we're not planning, to produce that housing, then we're really, like, we're we're not planning, you know, we're not planning, you know, we're not planning for everyone. And I see this as kind of a step in that direction. That's why I'm hesitant to vote for today. I think there should be more discussion. I think there's been good discussion here. I'm not opposed to unplugging pipelines and getting people to work and stuff like that, but at what cost? And so that's all I have to say.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. Commissioner Williams, I think you have a consistent message, and I think it is really important for everyone to hear. And also, perhaps I might like to bring you up back here again, the representative from our MOCD office. Do you mind realliterate to us? I think you spoke really eloquently last time in our presentation, our previous hearing. But explain to us walk us through about how the general fund has some part of it is for the MOCD specifically for 100% affordable housing.

[MOHCD Representative (Affordable Housing)]: Yeah. More than general fund, I think there were a few things that you mentioned that, if I can go back and address those, that over the past five years, we've seen about $2,000,000 a year generated for affordable housing in the Market Octavia area. When we leverage those local funds, they can produce about 30 units of affordable housing. By comparison, the pipeline in the Market Octavia area is about 26,000 2,600 units. And of that, almost 30% is affordable units. So we would lose about 11 over the last five years, we've had about $11 million a year or, sorry, 11,000,000 total, so about 2,000,000 per year. If we were to continue on that path, that 2,000,000 a year leverages very few number of units. Whereas by comparison, if we're able to spur the market rate development and that will help with the inclusionary, we'll get far more number of affordable overall through the inclusionary than we would with the impact fees, were those impact fees to stay at the same rate they're going now.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you very much. This is very helpful. And Commissioner Lebron?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I Just wanna speak for a second about the related to the idea of a continuance that's been raised. So the first of all, I just wanna know. I mean, I'm I'm seeing the legislation was introduced June 17. So with the ninety day timeline, am I correct in thinking we have until September 17 to weigh in on it, essentially, give or take? Okay. So if if there were if it was continued and and came back to us, yeah, it wouldn't come back to us because we wouldn't make it or or we would need to catch it in those first probably the first hearing back, actually, I think on the the eleventh. But, you know, either as it may, I have another question about the the engagement that you were speaking about, mister Bentlove. So I know that you mentioned a number of neighborhood organizations that you've interacted with. Would you mind just recapping that for me? And then maybe also it would be helpful maybe also to hear the type of information you were able to share at that time during those meetings about this proposal. And I'll preface it. Sorry. I want to say, I think two key issues have been raised repeatedly for those who have written in in favor of a continuance have been how the projects that will not receive local fee revenue will still be funded and also this desire for a guarantee that that development projects would actually be, able to move forward without the fees being applied.

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: Yeah. Well, absolutely. Thank you, commissioner. So, yes, we have spoken with, the the neighborhood groups that I mentioned. One of the earliest ones was with HVNA. We've also had a number of follow-up conversations, with them via email. Most of the conversation has been about some of the specific community improvement projects, how they would be impacted. So, for example, we relayed that the Living Alleys program now.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Could you speak a little bit more into the microphone? Thank you.

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: Yes. Certainly, commissioner. Apologies. I'm

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: on TV.

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: It's I think the microphone's getting tired. It's lagging here.

[Mark Babson (Emerald Fund)]: That's true.

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: We are. So we talked about, for example, how the living alleys overall program now lives with Public Works and that they have a million dollars on hand and will be, completing the one they have underway and two more that are already funded. So we provided that level of specific information. We had questions about the fees and, you know, how does this relate to the amount of fees that we would get from the citywide impact fees. And I was able to share that, as I said, these impact fees from the area plan are about 50% if you're in the SED area of your total impact fee bill. So that would mean that if we waive them and then we got the other 50%, the citywide impact fees, we would get as much as we had, foregone through this fee waiver. And the rest of the market activity plan area, about a third of your total fees are from these area plan fees. So you would actually get more than what we would be giving up, from those impact fees, the city wide impact fees. And that is not and so I I was able to share that information. We also talked with the DuBois Triangle, neighbor association that was very enthusiastic about getting the housing under construction, and I believe is supportive that their board hasn't had a chance to meet the two CBD Civic Center and Castro Upper Market are very focused on, bringing vitality back to the area, getting the projects built. Also, it will help their programming. I haven't even mentioned the assessment fees that actually go to the CBDs to do all the programming, that they're able to do, the cleaning, the safety work. So we had those discussions as well. And like I said, we went to the market Octavia CAC and there were, no concerns raised there about moving forward with this and also, a lot of interest in providing the housing. With respect to the timing, I do just wanna share that, this item would not be going, to the Board of Supervisors until after their recess. It's about to be recess time here at City Hall, as you all know. So it wouldn't be coming back until September. Accordingly, we have already, agreed and scheduled, as you heard from Vladimir, to come and see HVNA in August. We'll be going to the Castro CBD board in August as well, maybe others. So that conversation's been underway, and we've been scheduled to continue to have those conversations. And we will do so before, it comes to the board of supervisors. So there is ample time to continue to have that conversation.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you for that. And, it is you know, I I do I think I think it's helpful also to have that out there that this isn't the last stop of the legislation. This is an important opportunity for us to weigh in from our professional expertise and and role in the commission. But it's not like we are actually we don't pass legislation. So, but thank you. It's helpful just to inform my my thinking on this. I just I do wanna say, you know, I'm still very hesitant to support this with the the 100% fee waiver because I don't really think I don't think the fees come back, honestly. So at least if there's a reduction in place, you know, it's still something that's more likely to be revisited in the future. Hopefully up if conditions improve in the future. But I'm very unsure about a complete waiver.

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

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I see Vladimir. You you you is is that could could you you had something to say. I I would like to give you an opportunity to to speak. You look like you you had something out that you wanted to get off your chest.

[Vladimir (Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association)]: That's very kind of you. So, yes, speaking to the the outreach, you know, an an an email is not community outreach. I'm I'm the chair of the Hays Valley Planning Association. We would like to have the entire community weigh in, not just me as as the central figure. I'm not the the gatekeeper of of Hayes Valley. I've lived in the neighborhood my entire life. I love the neighborhood, but I don't speak for the entirety of Hayes Valley. So I I went out of my way to to schedule a meeting for for August 28. We're we're trying to secure a venue to have OEWD weigh in, and so we can actually weigh in as well and have a robust conversation and not have this rush through before the August recess and and then, you know, have it be voted on by the board of supervisors. When when you guys vote for your endorsement of it, what do you think the board of supervisors will be voting? You know? They're gonna they're kinda they're gonna go go the way you guys are are supporting it. So, again, this is something that's very near and dear to me. I think we need more time to talk about this, and instead of rushing this through. I don't understand why all of a sudden from from June to now, we have to pass this. It's it's really, it's really quite shocking, actually. So that's that's my thought on it. And, again, I want to continue this time until we at least have a community meeting about this, which we have not had. Thank you.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Yeah. And and thank you for your service to, you know, to to the to the city and to your community. We need more folks like you to step up, and and I really appreciate, your contribution today. And thank thanks thanks everyone who showed up on both sides of the issue.

[Robin Levitt (Hays Valley resident/CAC member)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you. And, Commissioner Vice President Moore?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I personally want to restate my, support for the continuance, and I am not taking sides about the outcome. It will be the respectful dialogue between everybody, both sides who are presented to you today, to come up with a solution that serves the neighborhood and the market of Octavia, as well as the city at large. We are in change times. That is very well understood, and I do think for all of us to stick together, realize what the common quandrum is, but collectively move forward, not stepping on each other's toes. I think that will be the art, and I do ask that my commissioners respectfully acknowledge that and support the continuance. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: And, Rachel, you want to say something?

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: Sure. Not sure where the discussion is headed. It's obviously been very robust. We have some requests for more time. We have some folks, like commissioner Troy here, wanna advance it, some folks who aren't sure. And maybe just for members of the public, I think as Mr. Bintliff was saying, you know, this is one part of the process. The planning commission certainly is giving their recommendation or their thought to the board, who will then take it up in committee and then further take it up at the full board. We see Ms. Tam here from supervisor Dorsey's office who is sponsoring it. We know that I'm sure supervisor Mahmood would be interested in continuing the dialogue with folks and seeing if there are further changes. Commissioner Braun, if you aren't comfortable with the legislation as is, you might make a motion that includes a recommendation that the board consider a modest reduction in fee instead of a cancellation or to set a date by which they will reconsider to reinstate the fees, perhaps. That could be another way to just have a time where we do take a look, has the economy improved in three years, five years, whatever time period, to consider it. So there's some things to consider. And if you if the, motion to continue doesn't work, but also the motion to approve doesn't work, what are some other alternatives, for the commission's consideration?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay, commissioners. If there is no further deliberation, there are two motions on the floor, and the motion for continuance will take precedence. Commissioner Moore, as the maker of the motion, did you have a projected date or time frame that you would like to continue this matter to?

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I would like to hear it as early as possible in order to support the legislative process to become to come come to the Board of Supervisors prior to our deliberations on

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: It sounds like the only two remaining options are a one week continuance to July 31 or to September 11.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: How about the first first meeting in September?

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: That is the first meeting in September. September 11. Yes. Your break extends from August through the September.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I would like to ask mister the community CCAC representative to to see how soon you could meet in order to make this

[Vladimir (Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association)]: August 28 is is what I've been pushing for.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: And could you come to the to the microphone, please, so that everybody can hear you?

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

[Vladimir (Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association)]: We are looking for August 28. That's a that's a Thursday to meet with OEWD and anyone else from the city, family that wants to, present to, Hayes Valley and the community. I can also, speak for, Lower Hate Merchants Association, who we've coordinated with in the past in regards to, fighting against the muni budget cuts, they would be very interested in participating as well. But again, August 28 is what I have on the books to actually have a robust dialogue with the city agencies.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Commissioner, vice president Moore, I would recommend September 18 so that there is more time for the date for the continuous call back here in the planning commission.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: I believe I heard

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: that September 17 is our cutoff date of ninety days to consider before it goes to the board without your recommendation.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I need to

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: But that doesn't mean you can't continue it to September 18. Yeah. Just pointing that out.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: I would support September 18.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Let's call it September 18 and see that the community had all of the discussions with each other together with our representatives from from YIMBY to come up with something that finds a collectively understood way of moving forward?

[Jacob Bintliff (Office of Economic & Workforce Development)]: If I may, I think that the I do believe that September 17, is the ninety day cutoff, to for that to be extended, it requires a resolution from the board of supervisors who are also about to go on recess. So I just don't know that it would be possible to have one go through, in time if the board was amenable to doing so. So if you're looking at September 11, seems to be the one that fits within the allocated time frame.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I do not know the workings, you know, workings of the department. Miss Tanner, could you please give us some your your your perspective?

[Rachel Tanner (Deputy Director, SF Planning)]: And the date that we should continue to? This is the question. Well, Well, certainly, the eleventh is going to be a very, very busy commission day. So that is certainly to be considered. Yeah. I don't know if I can give you the direction that you're looking for. Certainly next week, if OEWD could meet with the Neighborhood Association and rearrange your schedules, that's obviously quite different than next August or later in August. That might at least give some room for conversation. So I'm not sure if I have something more definitive, vice president Moore.

[Lily Langlois (SF Planning staff)]: I I think, you know, part of the concern is just making sure that there's more outreach that's done and that we're hearing from voices and that they're being part of the solution. So I think the city, both planning and OEWD, are committed to doing that outreach. If you choose to have this on September 18, we're past the ninety day deadline, which means that a recommendation goes to the board without your recommendation. So it seems that if there's some trust to city departments to have that engagement, and I think we're committed to doing that, then that would be something that we, that, yes, that we would like to do.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I'd I'd be Thank commissioner. Directing my my question towards supervisor Dorsey's legislative aide. Perhaps you could comment on that as to whether or not there is any support here.

[Madison Tam (Office of Supervisor Matt Dorsey)]: So I'll I'll echo the comments from Lily that there's commitment from, city departments and the supervisor's office to continue conversations. There are time limitations, as mentioned, on the ninety days. And given the board's about to go on recess, we're pretty limited in what we can do and recognizing that you have a very substantive hearing on September 11. So I'll associate myself with those comments that our office is also committed to having conversations with the community between now, over the August recess and whenever this legislation moves forward at the board.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I do like my my question back to the community representative, you're hearing the time constraints we are under, that putting it onto the eleventh September calendar is extremely difficult. Would you be, if you wouldn't mind coming to the to the microphone, would you be able to find members of your group to talk with different supervisors before or during this time and prior to your meeting with MOECD, which would be too late to have an impact on what we're doing here?

[Vladimir (Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association)]: Well, we're talking about just a month right now, so I'm not quite sure how we can speed that up even even further. The idea is that you guys are gonna vote today whether you pass it or you ask for a continuance. I we are asking for a continuance so we can have that conversation. You know, I understand that you guys may have a a busy agenda on September 11, but, you know, this is an important issue for the community. And if it's a long agenda, it's a long agenda. I mean, that's that's just the reality of of we we have to talk about this stuff. Yeah.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Put it on the eleventh. Thank you, president. So let's just put it on the eleventh and bite the bullet that it will take its time, and we we will prepare to handle it on the eleventh.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Campbell, do you have another comment before the vote?

[David Kim (San Francisco YIMBY volunteer)]: I don't know.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: Maybe we should just

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: do the vote, but I was just thinking I could also amend my motion to include some of the things that have evolved since I made the motion, community engagement over the month of August, as well as a recommendation to the board of supervisors to, to consider a partial amendment of the impact fees or sunset the waivers after a period of time or revisit the waiver after a period of time, if that would be more appealing. But maybe we do the vote and we see how it changes.

[Lydia So (President)]: I just

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: think that that would not basically change the request to

[Lydia So (President)]: listen to continuance first. Commissioner Lebron, would you like to make some comments before

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Yes, please. So, I I don't support the continuance because I don't think that, for me, what might evolve out of

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: those

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: conversations is still something that can influence the legislation down the path down as it makes its way through the actual legislative adoption process. And, you know, having it come to us for a hearing on September 11 just before it goes into that process, I'm just not you know, I think there's still a lot of room to have those conversations regardless of whether we vote today or on the eleventh. So what I would prefer to do is to not continue. And if the motion is being amended, to instead make that point, the recommendation and emphasize the priority that needs to be placed on this engagement with the neighborhood organizations and the CAC. If we have that in there, that's great for me. I'm happy with that. And, if there's, the motion includes also the recommendation to only make it a partial fee waiver, then I could support that as well.

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

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: In support of that, my big fear, my biggest fear here is the ninety days. We complain that authority is taken away from the commission, and if we kick this can down the road, intentionally, that we actually take away our own authority so we don't have to do anything, and there isn't a recommendation that goes to the board. Shame on us. So if we have to get in here at 10:00 next week, I'm willing to do it. 10:00. If we have to get in here a week early, at the August, I'm willing to do it. If it's 10:00 on the September 11, because we have a very heavy day that day, willing to do it, But we should basically make a decision here.

[Lydia So (President)]: Okay. Point taken. And Commissioner Williams?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I'd just like to point out, you know, the fact that these community groups that have been involved with this area plan for many, many years, haven't really been informed about it, speaks to, like, it speaks to the lack of of transparency, and, you know, the need to, have a dialogue with the community. We were still a democracy here, and it's important to get people's feedback, especially when these decisions impact them and their community. More and more, unfortunately, were getting those rights taken away, whether it's from the state or other places. And so I just want to, you know, emphasize that. You know, yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes energy. But we need to be respectful of community. We need to be respectful of people that put their time, energy into developing these plans. And I just want to just put that on the record. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner of ICE. Oh, shoot. Okay. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay, commissioners. If there's no further deliberation, there is a motion to continue to September 11. Is that correct? Correct. On that motion, commissioner Campbell?

[Lydia So (President)]: Nay.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Commissioner McGarry? Nay. Nay. Commissioner Williams? Aye. Commissioner Braun? No. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And commission president Tsao? No. Motion fails three to four with commissioners Campbell, McGarry, Braun, and Tsao voting against. Commissioners, there is, the original motion that has been since been amended. And is the seconder amenable to those amendments?

[Jim Abrams (Counsel to Crescent Heights)]: Yes.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Very good. Then there's a motion, to adopt a recommendation for approval with a recommendation for a commitment to community engagement and consideration to revisiting or a sunset to the waivers as well as a partial waiver consideration. Is that

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Just partial. Just partial?

[MOHCD Representative (Affordable Housing)]: Yes. Okay. Just

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: the partial consideration for waivers. On that motion, commissioner Campbell? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Williams? Nay. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? No. Commissioner Moore? No. And commission president Tsao?

[Lydia So (President)]: Aye.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: So moved, commissioners. That motion passes four to three with commissioners Williams, Imperial, and Moore voting against. Commissioners, that will now place us on item 14 for case number 2025Hyphen000704IMP2142130FultonStreet, the University of San Francisco informational presentation.

[Mary Woods (SF Planning staff)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. Mary Woods of department staff. The planning code requires that post secondary institutions, such as the University of San Francisco, submit a institutional master plan every ten years. So today, we are here to talk about the University of San Francisco's submittal of their ten year INP, their five to ten year master plan. The purpose of the IMP is to basically outline the university's short term and long term planning development plans, and to receive comments on the IMP by the commission, by the public. Just a little bit of background on the University of San Francisco. It's the city's oldest university. It was founded a hundred fifty years ago. The university has three main locations in San Francisco. The primary site is a 52 acre campus known as the Hilltop Campus near the Golden Gate Park Panhandle. There, it has two campuses. One is the Hilltop. That that's the main campus, which has two it's broken up into two campuses. One is called the Upper Campus. It's also known as the Long Mountain Campus, and the other is the Lower Campus. Since last week's commission packet distribution, staff received one letter, and it's basically in support of the IMP. This IMP is only an informational item, so there's no action required by the commission. The acceptance of the IMP by the commission today does not constitute any approval or disapproval proposed in the IMP. This concludes my presentation, and the University of San Francisco is here to give their presentation. Thank you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Would you wanna give me five minutes? Okay. You'll have five minutes.

[Beth Foster (Page)]: Okay. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Beth Foster with Paige, the firm engaged by the university to prepare the IMP. I will be joined by JJ Thorpe, associate vice president of facilities with USF. I am going to just give you a little bit of information about USF and then quickly touch on the key plan elements. The core of the campus, as Mary told us, is the Hilltop Campus, which has been located between the Panhandle and Geary Boulevard since 1927. USF also owns 101, the historic Folger Coffee building downtown, which is used primarily for professional programs and some commercial tenants. All in, the university has about 54 acres of land, about two and a half million square feet of space, and they lease an additional 58,000 square feet. Focusing in on the Hilltop Campus, the university has about 2,700 beds of student housing, shown in the map in yellow, and over 1,200 parking spaces off street. In addition to the academic buildings on campus, the university also has a number of community serving amenities, food and retail, and recreation facilities. Just to touch on some major campus improvements that have occurred since the last IMP, first in number one on the map, the retail and food venue on Lone Mountain, and additionally, numbers two and three, the Lone Mountain East Residence Hall. These projects added beds and parking and food amenities to the campus, making it a little bit more self contained on Lone Mountain with the goal of reducing pedestrian trips between the Lone Mountain and lower campuses. Additionally, the university acquired the property we call Masonic East. That's 2 Fiftytwo 70 Masonic, the former Blood Centers of the Pacific facility at Masonic and Turk. And then also since the last IMP, the university built or expanded the War Memorial Gym with the Socrato Center and the basketball practice facility. Since 2014, student trips to the campus have been reduced by 25, drive alone trips overall by 45%. This is due partly to new patterns since COVID, but also to the implementation of transportation demand management measures and to the construction of the housing on Long Mountain.

[Lydia So (President)]: The

[Beth Foster (Page)]: university maintains a productive ongoing collaborative relationship with neighbors, lots of communication through websites and neighborhood meetings, and a really progressive community relations policy. For this IMP, there were multiple town halls to gain community input on the planned projects. Student enrollment growth at USF has remained below growth projections. The last IMP anticipated less than 1% annual growth in students. This IMP takes the same approach, anticipating again less than 1% annual student growth. Employee population is anticipated to remain stable. To describe the five year projects in the IMP, first, that Masonic East Building is anticipated to be renovated. Additionally, there are planned windows replacements on the lower campus and a series of open space improvements, including a new visitor arrival on Parker Street north of the St. Ignatius church. It would be kind of a pull off space. Then improvements to the fountain and plaza at the library, turf replacement on the baseball diamond, and loading dock upgrades. Just to touch a bit more on the planned Masonic East renovation, This is planned to be a renovation of the existing building and is envisioned as a new hub for health and life sciences on the campus in the future. And then lastly, the ten year projects looking a little further into the future. The university anticipates a renovation of the Harney Science Center, which has not changed a lot since 1965, new student residences on Stanyan Street and Fulton Street on university owned property, and, Lone Mountain parking lot reconfiguration to add a new green, and lastly, potentially an academic building between Malloy And Kalmanovitz Halls on the lower campus. And with that, happy to answer any questions.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: There are no immediate questions from members of the commission. We should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter.

[Olga Miranda (SEIU Local 87; SF Labor Council)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Olga Miranda. I'm with SEIU Local eighty seven, and I'm also the secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council. I represent the janitors with SEIU Local eighty seven at the University of San Francisco. Yes, one of our oldest institutions, academic institutions in the city. We have been I I I'm a very patient person, and I think a lot of the struggles that we face as representing the janitors is that they always we're always undermined that we're not prepared, and we're very patient. And so this opportunity of being able to come forward, being able to speak, we understand that they have a five and a ten year plan. This is something that they're supposed to be doing, but I also want to be able to say, like, for our janitors, there's a lot of possibilities and projects that USF is looking forward to doing. We are just in the middle of a contract fight with the university and being able to get a fair contract, and so we have informed our siblings in the building trades of the challenges that we are being confronted with, and that we are in opposition to any of these projects simply because our janitors are asking, in this economic crisis, we are being confronted with, we're asking for a fair contract, and USF is not working with us. And so we are dealing with one of their vendors, ABM, American Building Maintenance, and we appreciate the work that you guys have. But also, I would ask that there be a hearing so that we can take it, to the community. I really appreciate a lot of the comments, from you all as commissioners and me making sure and ensuring that our democracy and our voices are heard across the board, but I would also say that it needs to include the working families that are doing the work. Our janitors walk seven miles, you know, every day going up and down the university at all of the locations, and we're proud of that. But we also need a fair contract, and this is why we were here and we came today. A lot of our members are working right now at the university, and we just wanted to be able to make sure that we were heard today at this commission. Thank you so much.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and this matter is now before you, commissioner. I will remind you this is not an action item. This is simply information.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner of Vice President Amor.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I believe that the, institutional master plan update is accurate and complete, it is of good quality, and meets the general criteria and expectations that this commission has about being updated. I find the graphic representation very informative, this is a difficult campus with two parts, which we all don't see unless we're in some drone above the city to follow how the two parts are interacting. I found the description of growth, sustained growth, and responses to all important aspects of the master plan fully answered, ranging from transportation, open space, interactive facilities, etcetera. So, I acknowledge, hearing it and being satisfied with the overall presentation. Thank you.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Lebron?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: First of all, as always, I just wanna say I appreciate the public commenter for coming out and and speaking to this item. I agree. I think that the master plan is is an excellent document. I really appreciate the reporting in it that's been done. And I also am happy to see, I mean, what I kind of take away from some of this is that it looks like the university is sort of also using this as a tool for community engagement and for being very sort of transparent and really putting forward, the ideas for the future of the campus in a very clear way. And so I thought it was just really nice to see something that's been prepared for what appears to be kind of multiple purposes to me. And I'm glad to see that there are reductions in the single occupancy vehicle travel, thanks to the student housing and remote work. And I can also see that, you know, the student body numbers are are down, but, there's also still capacity in there for the university to grow. And, it all, holds together for me. And and I just really appreciate you bringing this forward and and producing a really good, document too.

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

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: Also like to thank everybody for coming out. I would like to say this is the first thing I see in the morning when I hop in my car, like 06:00 in the morning, I look up and there's the church, and it's it's, it's be it's beautiful. It's one zip code over, but it seems like it's mine. I also want to it it does a proud history, a hundred and fifty years. I know everything that the the university does is union up there, and I wish them well, and I wish you well, Sister Olga. And, I hope and I'm pretty sure you'll come to a satisfactory settlement. Good luck.

[Lydia So (President)]: Commissioner Williams?

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: I just wanna lend lend my my voice to what my fellow commissioners have said. Growing up here, I didn't know a whole lot about USF. I've been there a few times for a few functions and a graduation here and there. But reading through this has given me a better understanding of the campus and all the things that you do. And this report's very impressive. And thank you for educating the population as you do. I happen to know a few graduates from USF, and they they're, they're a good reflection of the work that you do. So thank you very much.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you for continue to commit to this coming back to give us a report and gave us a very concise but impactful informational report on your improvements and also your projected student growth and your future five year and also long range plan. This is I don't need to say more. I echo my fellow commissioners. Thank you for this work. I but I would like to do a shout out that we love USF. I have a child going to high school, and I am really well aware of that your school is one of the very respected highly respected Jesuit institution in our country. So I wish you continued success, and I also wish you continue to lift everybody up in our community and and all all the other one that come forward to speak in, public comments. And please take care of them as well. And I, hopefully, there are many more bright mind young high schoolers who are decided to stay in San Francisco and apply to your school and got in. It's a tough school. It's a tough school to get in, but thank you for, continuing to be a beacon for the really high quality JetSuite institution for our county.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. Commissioners, if that concludes your deliberations, the public hearing on the institutional master plan is closed. And we can move on to item 15, case number 2025Hyphen005384 PPS for the property at 926 Natoma Street. This is an informational presentation. Project sponsor, you'll have five minutes.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Good afternoon, commissioner, and thanks for the opportunity to present this proposal for the 926 Natoma Street. The project is located in West SoMa, between 10 And 11th Street and Mission And Howard. So currently, it's a two story building, about 100 years old. And what we are proposing is taking advantage of I think I disconnected.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yeah.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Taking advantage of the state bonus, 50% bonus plan. So without the bonus plan, it would be a five unit, one bedroom unit, because we have to come back from the rear of the property, about 25%. With this bonus plan, we can go to six stories, six unit, two bedroom, and that's what we are proposing here. It's about 7,100 7,184 square feet without the bonus plan, and with the bonus plan, it would be about 10,727 square feet, six unit, and one of the six unit would be an affordable unit, which is about 16% of the total development. So it meets the minimum 15%. And it's very close to public transportation, so we are not proposing any parking for these units. So if you have any question, I'll be happy to answer.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. That concludes your presentation.

[Speaker 7.0]: Yes.

[Lydia So (President)]: We

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this item. You need to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and this matter is now before you. This is also just an informational item.

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

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Since we are only commenting, there is only an observation as you're taking the project forward and having a discussion with our planning department about it. I would like to suggest that showing your site and your building three dimensionally in the context in which it's being done would be a good idea, and I think in addition to the massing, which would become apparent, there should perhaps be a quick discussion on materials added. Otherwise, I think it's fine. It's an interesting project. It will be challenging. Is it correct that you were doing a rental project?

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Sorry. I didn't hear you.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: A rental project?

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Yes.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Okay. Yeah. That's all. Thank you so much.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: You're very welcome.

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: Commissioner Braun?

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: I I don't have any comments on your project exactly specifically. So thank you for being here and and presenting it. Instead, I just more have an observation that struck me about this project. And that is we've started to have conversations here at the commission about the possible the hope I'm going to speak for everyone, but there's an idea out there that maybe there will be a change to the building code in the state for allowing single stair, access buildings. And when I look at the floor plan for this building and I see how much additional square footage is being occupied by the second stairwell, And I see, you know, how much you could regain without that second stairwell and possibly also split these into having some floors be two units instead of one very easily if if you didn't need the two points of egress. It's it's kind of like this perfect case study of how things could change, if we had single stair access for some some taller buildings that was enabled.

[Jim Warshaw (Van Ness Corridor Neighborhoods Coalition)]: But thank you.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Thank you so much.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Commissioner Campbell? I agree with that last comment, and I don't know where we're at with that ex the can you speak to that? Do you know? Maybe after we do this, we can or I don't know if we can do that. Can we talk out of order like that? Can can you speak to that? Because I do think it's it would be so great to see that move forward in general. I know it doesn't apply to this project necessarily, but do we know?

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: I'm still learning. Can I talk?

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Yes. I don't know. I I'm also the newest commissioner, so I might be doing it wrong.

[Sarah Dennis Phillips (Planning Director)]: It is it continues to be an active conversation. There was a task force through DBI and with fire and with planning that happened in 2024. I'm 20 that kinda stalled out. Conversations are reengaged. I've heard similar levels of interest from various supervisors and from various community members. I was at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday meeting with a you know, doing a meet and greet with a number of their members, and it came up several times. So there's nothing actionable to report, only that it seems momentum is picking back up, and so we'll keep you posted.

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: Fantastic. I have very little to say about this as well other than it's a great infill project. Thank you for bringing six units. I love that you're prioritizing people over cars. You I'm a biker. You may have some bikers here. You may consider, ways to accommodate bikes Absolutely. In a way in your planning. That'd be my only recommendation, but good luck to you.

[Lydia So (President)]: It's a great project.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Thank you for

[Amy Campbell (Commissioner)]: your time. For sure. Yeah.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Commissioner vice president Morin. Only a comment on the single stair, it will require a robust discussion with the fire department who are actually the ultimate decider, together with engaging with cities like Seattle and a few others who are actively pursuing it, but that is a thing way above our pay grade.

[Lydia So (President)]: Okay. Great. Commissioner McGarry.

[Sean McGarry (Commissioner)]: I would agree with the single stair. I'm not a fan of s p four twenty three being used for anything less than 10 units, but I am happy that one of these is gonna remain an affordable unit.

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

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. That that was that was my question. I I was I was gonna, ask if if there's gonna be an affordable unit attached to this project.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Yes. One of the six will be which is it meets the the 15% minimum. Okay. Correct.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yeah.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Yeah. And if there was a single, stir

[Lydia So (President)]: Mhmm.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Or a single stir and a kind of vertical exit on the back, it makes projects like this way more feasible and more attractive to developers to do. So hopefully, it passes at some point.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Well, thank you. Thank you for that, and, good luck to you.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Thank you so much.

[Lydia So (President)]: Thank you for your presentation.

[Project Sponsor (926 Natoma Street)]: Okay. Thank

[Lydia So (President)]: you.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. With that, commissioners, we can move on to your final item on the agenda today, number 16, case number 2025Hyphen004385PPS for 1025 Howard Street, also an informational presentation.

[Steve Allen (Stanton Architecture)]: Good afternoon. I'm Steve Allen. I'm Stanton Architecture, representing the ownership on this. The project is located at Howard And Harriet Street, one street over from 6th Street. And this, current site is occupied by a post secondary building that's been it's been used for in the past. However, it's been sort of vacant for some years now, especially during COVID. It's sort of been a blight on the neighborhood. It's definitely a homeless hub right on that corner. It's sort of a slightly darker, smaller street on Harriet Street. So we're we're hoping to improve that. The proposed project going through s B 330 And 423 with density bonus as well. The base building design would be able to accommodate 93 dwelling units. We're proposing an additional 30% increase to, a 120 units, with a standard split of 40%, two bedrooms, 60%, one bedrooms. Within that, we will have, nine nine percent very low income affordable housing. And within that, we will be requesting a few waivers for the density bonus. One would be the distance between the bay windows. It's not not an extreme amount, but a slight change to that. A reduced rear yard setback, what we have shown right now is 15 feet. And then a height increase only on a portion of the site. The portion on-site that fronts Howard Street has a height limit of 85 feet, and it's an odd split. It's a single lot. However, half of the lot down Harriet Street has a 65 foot height limit, and we propose increasing that to 85 feet as well. We have ample bike parking in the basement, trying to stay under a high rise. Our highest occupied floor is 75 feet. We do have nine floors and we have dwelling units on the 1st Floor as well, but raised up, three feet from the street. With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: Okay. If that concludes your presentation, 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.

[Zachary Frio (SOMCAN)]: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Zachary Frio. I'm a D5 resident, and I work with SonCan. The proposed project at 1025 Howard Street is in direct conflict with the goals of the Southland Market Youth and Family Special Use District and the priority equities geographies, SUD. Within the boundaries of both, this project falls. The Youth and Family Special Use District was created to protect and enhance the health and environment of youth and families by adopting policies that expand the provision of affordable housing in the South Of Market. The proposed project at 1025 Howard will have two negative impacts on SoMa youth and families. First, the project will provide just nine units of affordable housing. That's 7.5% of the total units, meaning that over 90% of the units will be priced at rates inaccessible to low income families who live in the neighborhood. Second, based on the planned design, the proposed project is highly likely to cast a shadow on the nearby Jean Friend Recreation Center, one of the very few public spaces in Soma designed specifically for children and youth. What we need instead at the site is 100% affordable housing in line with the recommendations of the Soma Filipinas CHESS housing implementation plan. In addition, we'd also like to mention that SP four twenty three's streamlining of this project violates the principles of the priority equity geographies that are supposed to protect marginalized communities living in under resourced neighborhoods like the South Of Market. As stated in the city's housing element, priority equity geographies are areas where the city must, quote, focus on repairing past harms through environmental justice and equitable strategies to address the disparate outcomes in wealth and health. Ministerial review removes the process for comprehensive public input, effectively preventing our community from voicing our concerns around the unaffordability and shadows that this proposed project will cause in our neighborhood. Coupled with AB130, which provides CEQA exemptions for inflow housing, Sacramento has made it clear that they would rather sacrifice the health and environment of low income communities for the sake of building more unaffordable housing. This project should not be approved if it casts new shadows on the Gene Fund Recreation Center or any public open space. No waiver should be given for the shadow requirements for this project. And we ask that the planning department conduct its due diligence to protect the health of SoMa youth and families in our limited open spaces. Additionally, the project's extremely low percentage of affordable units means that almost all of the units in this project will be unattainable for low income youth families and seniors in our community, contributing the further gentrification in our neighborhood. Approving this project as is will not only cast a literal shadow on Jean Friend, but a figurative shadow on future development in SoMa and all priority equity geographies in the city. Thank you.

[David Wu (SOMA Pilipinas)]: Hello, commissioners. David Wu with Soma Filipinas. There was a letter submitted, to you by six Soma based organizations opposing, the project before you now based on likely shadow impact at Gene Fran rec center and lack of affordability in the project. There will very likely be new shadow cast on Gene Fran rec center from this project. There was a previous smaller hotel project proposed for this same site that would have cast new shadow on Gene Fran and this project is a larger project. Under the prop case sunlight ordinance, 0% new shadow is allowed on Gene Friend Rec Center. This is due to SoMa having one of the lowest amounts of open space per capita in the city, including only one recreation center. This is an equity issue. As recognized by the city's own recreation and open space element in the general plan, quote, open space and recreation activities improve residents' physical and mental health. They give residents access to sunshine, nature, and fresh air and can have a significant impact on people's stress levels and overall mental health, End quote. If this project would cause any new shadow to be cast on Jean Friend or any public open space, then the project should not be able to move forward and the Planning Department should deny it. While the state density bonus law may allow for waivers for this project, the density bonus law also states that the city can deny such a waiver if it finds that the waiver or reduction would have a specific adverse impact upon health or safety. As detailed in the city's recreation and open space element and prop k, new shadow on Gene Fren would have an adverse impact on the health and safety of the neighborhood. Therefore, no waiver should be given. The city must uphold its own laws and policies and protect the health and environment of vulnerable communities. The project is also located in the Soma Youth and Family SUD, yet provides an extremely small amount of affordable housing. The Soma Pilipinas CHESS report calls for land in Soma to be prioritized for affordable housing and commercial space. The Soma Pilipinas CHESS affordable housing and housing element implementation plan created in 2024 in conjunction with the planning department specifically identifies 1025 Howard Street as a site to be acquired for affordable housing due to the location and nature of the previous stalled hotel site. This site must be prioritized for a 100% affordable housing, and we ask that the planning department, please protect Jean Fran rec center from any shadows. 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, commissioners.

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

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: Just like before, it's an SB four twenty three project. Comments and reminders only to the architect. I think the project is very interesting in its location. However, there are questions. The showing the building in its context in a three-dimensional form would be very helpful. I have a question about discussions about materials are missing, but that will perhaps come when you're meeting with the department to look at it in more detail. My question to you would be, is the roof deck being occupied or used for open space? I'm looking for other amenities. Are you thinking of providing a laundry facility other than storage in the basement? You have a reasonably large building. That is just an idea. I don't need any answer. I'm just asking for you to consider it.

[Speaker 7.0]: Yeah. I think I think we would assume we would have laundry facilities

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

[Speaker 7.0]: the the dwelling units in there. We we would love to have the roof be occupied. Right now, it's a little bit of balance in having it be a high rise. And as soon as you get over that threshold, we used to, you know, have an exception with the fire department where if your roof deck was above 75, then then it was not counted as another floor. Now they do count it. So, unfortunately, currently, in its current form, we do not have a roof deck.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: That's an important point you're making. I didn't actually pay that much attention to that level of detail, but it is what it is, and I understand the path that you will need to take moving forward. And you heard the community of Soma Filipina represent their concerns. I would strongly recommend that looking at shadows potentially over the Jean Friend community center is a big issue. We just, the other day, actually last week, approved or supported the funding, additional funding that Park and Rec was looking for, building actually rebuilding the community center. So I think it's an issue. The open spaces in that part of the city are very scarce and very, very much appreciated given the overall lack of more community wide open space. So I'd give that your consideration to think about. Thank you.

[Speaker 7.0]: We have considered that. I was involved in the previous project for the hotel and doing the required shadow study for that. And it was a very small amount of shadow. It's it's located at the very opposite end of Harriet Street, which is a narrow street anyway. And then it was really sort of a sliver of shadow it put on there sort of toward the end of the day for a pretty short amount of time. It's always amount of opinion. And that was that study was done with the previous gene friend. And the current iteration of the Gene Friend actually reduces that shadow even further since shadow is not counted for what hits the building. So even the small amount of shadow that was on the park before was reduced by the new building.

[Kathrin Moore (Vice President)]: I appreciate you saying that. I think the community, expressed a cautious concern. They they basically are uncertain, but for you to bring that forward in a discussion with them would definitely help further the cause. Thank you.

[Speaker 7.0]: Thank you.

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: Commissioner Braun.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Yes. Along those lines, I mean, just because it's an s p four twenty three project and our purview over it is limited to this hearing and our comments, it doesn't mean you can't and and shouldn't, continue to work with the community and to meet with these organizations to do what you can to address concerns and potentially modify the project in ways that will make it a better project for the community. So I'll put that out there. And, one of their observation is it's kind of interesting to me. I I'm not an architect, you know, but I just it's interesting to me to see that this is I think it's 84 feet to the roof height on the project.

[Speaker 7.0]: 85. Yes.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: 85. And yet it's a nine story building because of that kind of half down level. And you know, I just so I I appreciate that, you know, it reads I don't know. Actually, I'm curious. You know, I mean, was some of this an effort to to reduce the total roof type? Because you're you're getting nine stories in in less than nine in,

[Speaker 7.0]: you know, below. Essentially nine foot floor to floor, and the 1st Floor is 12 foot.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's a pretty, kind of constrained package too within, kind of, how the building's configured. And that's, you know, I think that helps with the impacts of having a taller building here. I have a question for department staff and your review of projects like this. So being an SP four twenty three project, it doesn't go through a SQL analysis, which is often where the shadow studies wind up landing. But I am curious, you know, we're able the city is able to apply its objective criteria to projects being reviewed, under a lot of the housing streamlining laws. And is our shadow on public parks is an objective requirement, is a numerical requirement, and or standard. And so I'm curious, how has the department been treating projects for, SB four twenty three projects or streamline projects for, the need to address shadow on parks in the city? Do we have leeway to do that? Or what's been the procedure?

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: Sure. I'm happy to opine on this. I would say the primary difference here is actually less of a four twenty three issue in the ministerial permitting. Although shadows are analyzed under CEQA, I say the primary driver here of shadow review is section two ninety five. So it is a code provision, typically. That's sort of the voter initiative as opposed to sort of the SQL lens of the same topic. So it's a little less of the four twenty three. In this project's instance, they're also leveraging state density bonus, I believe. And so it's in the context of density bonus, and through our density bonus procedures. And I will say, I am not in the weeds to tell you exactly every reason why, but I do know that our housing experts have grappled with this issue when state density bonus first came, and density and it is not something that is analyzed as part of state density bonus projects. We can follow-up with the specific rationale as well as why. I know Kate Connor has all of the details for you on that, but it's the analysis of shadow study typically in the context of density bonus where that is regulated differently than for a typical discretionary project.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Do projects typically need to exercise a waiver or concession? Well, I don't know if it'd be a concession. But do they typically have to actually use a measure under the state density bonus in order to overcome a situation in which there would be new shadow on a public park?

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: Sure. And this is where I'm I probably know dangerously enough, but I don't wanna speak out of turn here. So my understanding, but we can follow-up with you, is that, for properties throughout the city, there are those that have very clear objective, quantitative standards, budgeted parks with very specific standards. There are other parts of the city that don't. For the parts of the cities that don't have an objective standard, it's not an objective standard. And through density bonus and these processes, you can only apply objective standards, which is why we've gone through all of our design standard updates and things of that nature. So for those, with sort of that bucket, they don't need to use an incentive because it's not an objective code standard that needs to be waived effectively. My understanding, the asterisk there, is that for those that have very clear objective numerical standards, Applicants can just use a waiver. So the end result or or an incentive. I'm sorry. They can use an incentive within their project through state density bonus. So the end result is still effectively the same, that those controls are often typically not applied in state density bonus projects. It just depends which technical route of how you get there, basically.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: K. Thank you. And so if I wanna follow-up on this, that's Kate Connor?

[David Kim (San Francisco YIMBY volunteer)]: Yes. Okay.

[Lydia So (President)]: Yes. I

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: think I'll reach out to you.

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: State density bonus or Kate Connor is my go to.

[Derek W. Braun (Commissioner)]: Alright. Thank you. It's it's an interesting question that I hadn't really grappled with before because it's it's an off-site impact, and yet it is quantitative and objective. And so I hadn't really had to consider this. And plus, it's an interesting it raises an interesting question about, you know, there might be projects that are adding to the total annual cumulative shadow load on a public park that has a a numerical cutoff for that. And then I I'm also curious if we are now counting that, or do we just ignore that? Are we tracking projects where we are having to ignore that? So it's it's a whole yeah. It's complicated. So I'm I'm I'm gonna keep trying to learn about it. But thank you.

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

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Thank you, Commissioner Brown, for bringing that up. I was going to ask that kind of question as well in terms of the shadow impact in coincide with the SB four twenty three projects or our density bonus projects that will not need CEQA and that will be go through a ministerial process. So I guess, for me oh, you don't have I don't know if you I don't have question for you. I do. But, I guess I would also for you to just to address you directly is to continue that conversation with the community groups around the the shadow impact. And it looks like I guess my question, miss Wadi, is around, does the project sponsor need to still create, shadow impact analysis? Are they my impression is that they're not they don't have to do that. Right?

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: No. Again, I think depending on those options, there's no point in going through that work if at the end of the day, they're leveraging either an incentive or it's a non objective standard. So through one of those two paths, we're not going to make somebody invest in all of that work and that cost if the end result will be the analysis doesn't matter. But again, I think what's really important, what's the challenge with these applications that come before you for 04/23 is this project hasn't yet been submitted to the department. So it'll be once they file the application with the department, that's what our the work that our staff will do is not only ensure that it's eligible for 04/23 and go through the tribal screening and all of the extensive process for a typical SB four twenty three ministerial project, but we will also then take it through all of the state density bonus code review to make sure that everything they're asking for complies, with all of our regulations. We'll review their base project. We'll review their bonus project, and we'll go through that review. So it's only after both of those sort of technical reviews are done that we will be able

[Lydia So (President)]: to approve the project.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: Again again, kinda like going back to what commissioner Braun was kinda like talking about in terms of and I'm gonna go, you know, extend it further around the Prop k ordinance and, you know, the shadow study analysis and the Prop k ordinance and then with the state density that is, like, all ministerial. You know, they're so I I feel like for it's good to have for the commission to have some form of presentation regarding s v four twenty three when it comes to prop k ordinance. And, like, what you're talking about, the quantitative the objective quantitative standards and whether prop k would be considered a quantitative objective standard. So I I I think that that that is kinda like perhaps that's something we need to think about when we're if the state density bonus projects are talking or state density as before '23 is talking about you know and there's other things that we need to look in the objective client. Will prop k be part of that? And then I know we've been having these conversations from previous commissions before in terms of really how do, you know the the the problem with this state density that I see is that and it's hard to kinda, like, really create a hard argument is the when they talk about this specific on adverse impact on safety and health. And there is, you know, there is really no objective measurement for us to talk about the adverse impact on safety and health. And when we're talking about Prop k, the Prop k has a quantitative objective measurement that also talk about, you know again, we're talking about the the open space element. So, you know, that is kinda like there is that I I feel like we've been having that conversation of what is a quantitative adverse impact. But but we also need to look into that in a way that these ministerial projects and how it's looking into that language with the state density bonus as well.

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: And the magic of Microsoft Teams, miss Connor is listening and she gave me some insights. So I'm happy to opine on that. So two two quick thoughts. First, very straightforward. You can get a waiver from budgeted. So Prop k had budgeted parks, non budgeted parks. So that's what I was just talking about. Budgeted parks, specific, numeric

[Lydia So (President)]: Mhmm.

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: Quantifiable numbers for what the parks allowable, shadow hours have. And then many other parts of the city, there are none. So there's nothing quantifiable for a lot of parts of the city. So important distinction. You can under state density bonus law, you can get a waiver from budgeted parks because they're objective requirements. So the same way height can be waived, rear yard can be waived, the objective thresholds in Prop K for budgeted parks can also be waived. For non budgeted parks, since there are no objective requirements, it's kind of like a design guideline, like we would treat. There's nothing objective, so there's nothing objective to waive. So I think that's an important part on how we deal with shadow as it relates to state density bonus. For the other question relating to sort of health and safety impacts, the

[Lydia So (President)]: the

[Planning Department Staff (Policy/Legal Advisor)]: it there's a it's a very high bar. And the Housing Accountability Act does actually define what a, quote, unquote, a specific adverse impact means. And it states that a, quote, a specific adverse impact means a significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact based on objective identified written public health or safety standards policy or conditions as they existed on the date the application was deemed complete. So this really means things like academic studies. So, I think where we've really been struggling on these is I think a lot of folks in the community feel that there are impacts. We have not yet been able to find exactly what's required under the Housing Accountability Act in terms of written public health and safety documents by experts in the field. So I think that's the bar that we have to be able to meet under the Housing Accountability Act. So anyhow, that's the information that I've gotten in the last two minutes for

[Lydia So (President)]: you guys.

[Theresa Imperial (Commissioner)]: That's very fast. Thank you, miss Wadi.

[Lydia So (President)]: And also wanted to, bring up the fact that these projects are haven't actually come in to the planning department and actually get properly going through the staff level review to check all the pieces. So I'm pretty sure the project sponsor will work nicely with our department staff to make sure that all the things that you need to do is compliance with our current legislation and requirements. Right? Okay. Commissioner Williams.

[Gilbert Williams (Commissioner)]: Thank you for all the the the the shadow information. It's it's it's interesting. And as far as the project itself, I don't have too much to comment on. But what I will comment on is SB four twenty three and the way it goes against communities like South To Market. This isn't a priority equity geography, meaning that we're supposed to watch out and make sure that whatever we do on this commission or in this city as far as planning is gonna support these communities, these mostly low income communities like Southamarket, which I just wanna highlight something because it's personal to me. Being Latino from the Mission and seeing the impacts of that community, as well as the impacts of our Filipino brothers and sisters in the South African market. They've been impacted. They've been pushed out. And that's why these provisions came all about. And so SB four twenty three and others just run rough shot over that protection. And, you know, it it's I I think we should object to it. You know, I wanna be on the record. I I think we should challenge it. I think that we have an obligation to protect our citizens from these types of impacts. I just want to be on the record to say that I don't agree with these state laws. I think they're they're harmful, especially in these types of communities. In in other situations around the state and where there's, you know, communities that don't have the situation and they haven't been impacted by by gentrification, I can see where that would apply. But in these communities where they've had so much to deal with, so much pain and suffering around displacement, We are essentially being rid, basically, of these communities of color. And most of them are South America, had a very large historically significant Filipino population. The Mission District had, and it's dwindling, Latino community that contributed greatly to this city. The African American community has been impacted. And so I can go on and on, but I just wanna put that out there that not everything that comes out of the state is helpful. I understand that they wanna produce, they wanna increase housing. But if it's gonna hurt our citizenry, we have to stand up for them. And that's all I'm gonna say.

[Lydia So (President)]: Alright. Thank you. I think that concludes our deliberations on this item.

[Jonas P. Ionin (Commission Secretary)]: If so, that concludes your hearing today.

[Lydia So (President)]: Alright. Meetings adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.