Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

This webinar is being transcribed and summarized.

Okay. Good afternoon and welcome to the San Francisco Planning Commission hearing for Thursday, July 30th, 2026. When an item is called that you would like to submit testimony for, 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 30 seconds remaining, you will hear a chime indicating your time is almost up. When your allotted time is reached, there is a second chime, and 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. At this time, I'd like to take roll, Commission President Campbell.

Here.

Commissioner So.

Here.

Commissioner McGarry. Present. And welcome to Commissioner McDonald.

Present.

Commissioner Koppel. Here. And Commissioner Chen. Present. Thank you, commissioners. First on your agenda is consideration of items proposed for continuance. Item 1, case number 2025-003983DRP-02 at 871 De Jaro Street. Discretionary review is proposed for continuance this September 17, 2026. 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. Last call. Seeing none, public comment is closed. We can move on to your consent calendar. All matters listed here under, I'm sorry, commissioners. We need a motion to continue. Moving along a little fast. Trying to catch up.

Commissioner Sell, motion to continue. Thank you.

Seconded.

Thank you, Commissioners. On that motion to continue, Item 1 is proposed. Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Soe? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, Commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0. Now we can move on to your consent calendar. Commissioners, all matters listed here under constituted 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 2, case number 2026-003701, CUA at 2071 Union Street, conditional use authorization. And item 3, case number 2026-002061, CUA at 1649 Divisadero Street, conditional use authorization. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to request that either of these two items be removed from the consent calendar and considered under the regular calendar. You need to come forward. Last call. Seeing none, public comment is closed and your consent calendar is done before you, commissioners.

Commissioner Chen? I would like to recuse myself from item three due to a potential conflict.

Do we have a motion to recuse Commissioner Chen from item three? So moved.

Second. Second.

Thank you. On that motion to recuse Commissioner Chen from item three. Commissioner Chen. Aye. Commissioner Koppel. Aye. Commissioner McDonald. Aye. Commissioner McGarry. Aye. Commissioner So. Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell. Aye. So moved. Commissioner Chen, you are hereby recused. You can just sit tight for now. It's just the consent calendar. So do we have a motion for item three on consent? So moved. Second. Thank you. On that motion then to approve item three on consent, Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Soe? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously five to zero. Commissioner Chen, you are now rejoining us for the remainder of the consent calendar. Is there a motion for item two on consent? So moved.

Did we get them wrong?

Thank you, commissioners, on that motion to approve item two on consent. Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Soe? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously six to zero. And we'll place this under commission matters for item four, commission comments and questions.

Well, as you pointed out, today is a big day at the Commission for a body of seven. We are welcoming three new commissioners. We have Michael Chen, Elizabeth McDonald, and Joel Koppel. I wanted to just take a moment to give you a warm welcome and also ask if maybe you could do a quick introduction of yourself to the audience and the public. Maybe we'll start with you commissioner couple sure.

It's great to be back a lot of familiar faces here Thanks for the public showing up. I think it's a great sign when there's so many familiar faces from staff still here Not not the biggest turnaround So it's gonna be refreshing to continue working with you all look forward to bringing the past eight years of experience Back to the hearing room, just a little bit of professional cleanup. I have since changed employers. I still have my 24-year background working in the building and construction trades for IBEW Local 6, but two years ago took an opportunity to stay within the same industry, and now I'm employed by the San Francisco Electrical Contractors Association. So this is pretty much within the same industry, the management portion of our industry. It's made up of 28 San Francisco located electrical contractors, a lot of who have been in business for over 100 years. um same background experience but a little more of a refined angle when it comes to the business side of our industry and so just looking forward to continuing the city's growth downtown housing keeping things affordable and working with transit to make this city as sustainable as it can be thank you welcome commissioner koppel commissioner chen

Thank you, President Campbell. Good afternoon. My name is Mike Chen. I've been honored to be nominated by Mayor Daniel Leary for the Planning Commission. I'm a longtime public commenter at this commission going back to 2017, mostly advocating for housing, shelter of many different kinds at many different income levels. And now I've had some advocacy with San Francisco YIMBY, And now on this side of the dais, something that is really energizing me is hearing about a friend who left his rent-controlled one-bedroom in Dubose Triangle to move in with his boyfriend. He rented it in 2022 for $3,100. It went on the market for $5,100. this year. And so something that I am very passionate about is thinking about how we can make sure that we are really planning for an affordable and vibrant city for ourselves and also our posterity in our future. Thank you.

Thank you and welcome, Commissioner McDonald. Welcome.

Thank you, President Campbell. And I am honored to have been nominated by Board of Supervisors President Mendelman for this position. I come to it from a long career in various aspects of planning. The bulk of my career was spent at UC Berkeley as a professor of city and regional planning. My research has always been very much practice-oriented, looking particularly at streets and the public realm. I'm passionate about the opportunities in cities to create a really vibrant public realm that works really well for everyone. in concert with all the other goals that the community has and the aspirations the community has for what they want the city to be. And so I'm excited to be here and be a part of the conversation, be a part of the grappling with everything, and hopefully can contribute to you know, meeting the aspirations and goals that we have. I'm very cognizant of the fact that there is quite a housing crisis in the city, and it's really important to address that in creative ways. And it's also important to but remember all the richness that we have here, that we treasure so much in this city, and how we can do those things together, meet those goals together, and do that within the context of maintaining equity and inclusion and all those things. So thank you very much. I'm very, very happy to be here.

Thank you and welcome, and thank you for doing that. I put them all on the spot, so that was really appreciated. I think everyone appreciates hearing more and learning more about you, so thank you. And of course, with these hellos comes one kind of heartfelt goodbye for us, former Commissioner Derek Braun, who is here today The other side of the diocese here, we weren't sure of the timing of the turnover. So we're really grateful he's here today. And we can just carve out a little time to acknowledge him and send him off with a proper goodbye. And I know there are several people that would like to participate in that, including myself. I can get us started. OK. Derek served for a full term here on the commission. He was nominated by Breed, I believe. I think what I really admire so much about the way Derek showed up was twofold. He took the job of commissioner incredibly seriously. He dedicated his entire weekends to devouring the packets and the materials that were given. If you don't know, it's an incredible amount of reading. And sometimes it's thousands of pages for one item. And Derek really took the time to understand the material. And he showed up every Thursday so prepared. And you could see it in the way that he was able to talk about the material, the questions he asks of staff. So I really admired the thoughtfulness and the care that he took in his preparedness. But I think what really stood out to me about Derek is his love of San Francisco. It really, the way he would talk about matters before us, it was really clear that he wanted to do what was right for San Francisco because he just loves this city. So we hope to carry that on, Derek. I think, you know, you obviously bring an economic perspective because of your work, but you really care so much about people and place. And for that, I will greatly miss you on the commission. And I wish you the best of luck. Commissioner Self.

Derek served us his final meeting with us last week and I have to admit that it still feels really strange to look over and not see him sitting up here with us. I really appreciate working with you and I know you for many years even before I start serving on the Planning Commission. And for those who may not know, Derek brought a level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail to this work that has set a real standard. He reads every staff report closely. He asked the questions the rest of us hadn't thought of yet. And his depth of knowledge as a land use and economic professional caught issues more than once that many of us might tend to overlook a little bit. And this kind of expertise doesn't come along often in this commission and to this community. So Derek also treat everyone who came before us nervous or frustrated with the same patience and respect. That's a standard worth remembering. So Derek, I will miss you so much. And I wish you have more fun things to do on your Thursdays. And please don't be a stranger.

Commissioner McGarry.

Derek, it was an honor working with you. You bring a level of not just thoughtfulness, but detail that is just fascinating. How you can get that far into the weeds is beyond me. I'm thoroughly impressed in what you do, and not just what you do, but how you actually do it and the level of detail you get to it. And I seriously wish you well and look forward to seeing you in the future. But wish you well in everything you do. Our paths will cross again many times. Any other comments?

I think that's it, Jonas.

Very good. If there are no additional comments, Commissioners, we can move on to Department Matters for Item 5, Director's Announcements.

So I think this is where Rachel and I will pick up from where the commission left off. First, with an incredibly strong sense of gratitude to Commissioner Braun for all the time, attention, depth of consideration that you've brought to us over these past couple years. I've had the pleasure of working with you for a full year. I wish it was longer than that. And I think during that time, your knowledge and depth of understanding exceeded mine in many cases. So, you know, if you ever think about not being on commission but coming back on staff, we're here. I'm going to let Rachel say a few things too, but I did want to, we brought for you one of our very special planning department bags that we all proudly carry. We hope you will proudly carry it as you move on. I'm going to bring this down.

And don't take that swag lightly. We have to work like years to get bags and swag at the department. So you know. Derek, it has been such a pleasure to know you. Some of you don't know I worked with Derek, actually. I was one of his clients when I worked for the city of Palo Alto. So that's actually how I got to know him and his patience for putting up with the most in-depth questioning and a client who was never satisfied. So you had great knowledge and wisdom. And so it was really great to get to talk with you. when you were considering coming on the commission. And I was very excited that you said yes and joined us for so long. Always very thoughtful, clearly very passionate, as well as versed in the matters, and I think always bringing a level of calm to the dais, which I think helps both members of the public, helped I think all of us, whether on commission or staff, just to kind of be grounded in some of the bigger picture things that we're focused on and what we're trying to achieve. And I just really will miss that energy here. But I hope to see you around San Francisco. And please do not be a stranger.

And while I'm hopeful that Commissioner Braun will be one of our first public comments so that we can hear from you as our goodbye to, a couple other announcements just before we close out. First, just so I say it publicly and not just privately, a really warm welcome to Commissioners Koppel, Chen, and McDonald. We're so excited to have you. As we've mentioned many times, we are throwing a lot at these commissioners for their first hearing. We have a pretty meaty agenda with a whole lot of in-depth topics. DIVING RIGHT IN. THANK YOU FOR THAT. WE ALSO, IN ADDITION TO COMMISSIONER BRAUN, WE HAVE ANOTHER SPECIAL GUEST WITH US HERE TODAY. SO COMMISSIONERS, PUBLIC, ON MAY 30TH OF THIS YEAR, WE LOST ONE OF OUR MOST VALUABLE AND LONG TENURED ASSETS AT THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT, MS. LULU HUANG, WHO IS HERE WITH US TODAY. And we have a proclamation for her today. I'd like to read a little bit of that into the record for Lulu. We did not have the opportunity to fet her on her exit date, so we're doing it a couple months late. We're really grateful to have her with us today. Many of you have met Lulu over the years. Some of you have not, because she works very quietly and hard behind the scenes, literally behind boxes and boxes sometimes. So a couple of things. Whereas Lulu Huang's career started with the planning department on January 3, 1983, ending on May 30, 2026, spanning 43 whole years. Whereas Lulu is the longest tenured planning staff person to ever work for the department, spanning multiple decades over two centuries. She crossed the millennial with us. Whereas Lulu studied design and industry at San Francisco State University and architecture at UC Berkeley. Whereas Lulu spent much of her career working tirelessly behind the scenes with our digital and OASIS teams, ensuring the technology and day-to-day operations of the planning department functioned without a hiccup, and they did function without a hiccup. We've had a couple of hiccups since, so we miss you, Lulu. So with that, therefore, be it resolved that in recognition of the exceptional and extraordinary contributions to the city and county of San Francisco by one Lulu Mabel Atini-Huang, the San Francisco Planning Commission issues this proclamation in her honor. Lulu. Thank you.

Oh my goodness. Just a few words. I want to thank everybody, especially honor to serve the commission for 43 years. I've been coming to this place, helping Jonas for a long time until the system changed. And I'm honored to have all the boss that I am with. They are so good to me. And all the people that I help and help in the department and serve the department, I am very honored. The most honored, I just gained a grandson. Thank you.

Thank you, Lulu. OK. Very good commissioners with that.

Jonas, commissioner or so.

I promise it will be really brief, but I can't have Lulu leave without me saying a proper thank you to Lulu. Lulu, , I'm here. I remember many years ago you greeted me and it's really nice and warm and you are setting a really good example of all the minority staff that is coming into work in the planning department for, I didn't realize it's like, you know, 40 something years. So I congratulate you being like a wonderful grandmother and you left a big shoe to fill. So I really personally deeply appreciate your influence and your support through all these generations of planners in our department. And can you please come visit us and come back to our Chinese New Year celebrations? If you can. Thank you. Thank you for your service.

Okay. Thank you again, Lulu. OK, with that, we can move on to item six for the review of past events at the Board of Supervisors. There is no report from the Board of Appeals, and the Historic Preservation Commission did not meet yesterday. This week, the Land Use and Transportation Committee forwarded the Street Tree Standards Ordinance to the full board with a positive recommendation. Additionally, the Land Use Committee continued the landmark designation for the site of the Comptons Cafeteria riot to work through community concerns. The full board passed the Hotels in RH Districts Ordinance and House of Latin Rock landmark designation on second read this week. They also passed approximately 20 landmark designations on first read. Lastly, the Board approved three appointments to the Planning Commission, Mike Chen, Elizabeth MacDonald, and Joel Koppel. If there are no questions, Commissioners, we can move on to general public comment. At this time, members of the public may address the Commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Commission, except agenda items. With respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the Commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting when the number of speakers exceed the 15-minute limit general public comment may be moved to the end of the agenda

Good afternoon, President Campbell and commissioners. Thank you so much for all the kind words that you shared. I really appreciate it. At this point, I think I can introduce myself as just an interested resident of District 8. So happy to be here. And also, thanks for the very cool tote bag. I also want to say welcome to the new and returning commissioners, Commissioner McDonald, Commissioner Chen, and Commissioner Koppel. Good to see you again. And I just want to share my gratitude to all the commissioners I've served with, Commissioner Campbell, so Koppel, McGarry, Tanner when I first joined, for being such thoughtful, kind, and enthusiastic colleagues throughout our time together. During my four years as a commissioner, it was a privilege to participate in actions, including actions to develop and implement the department's equity work plan to support the production of housing at a full range of affordability levels. support reinvestment in our city as we came out of the pandemic, and also to provide sustainable and equitable transportation choices through actions that prioritize the connections between transportation and land use. And I look forward to the Commission's continued efforts along all those fronts and more. So I just want to share a few thank yous to Secretary Ionin for supporting the Commission so well and being so responsive to me. Director Phillips, you've been a very thoughtful and empathetic leader of the department. And it's been wonderful to see. And then I also want to give a shout out to the incredible staff of the planning department. No shade to the nearly 100 clients, public sector clients I've had as a consultant, urban economics consultant. I think that the planning department staff is some of the greatest collection of the most earnest, brilliant, hardworking, and professional planners out there. And I really appreciate that you're always there to answer my questions, sometimes kind of intense questions, often out of left field. And I'm very grateful for all the work of department staff. And then most importantly, I just want to say thank you to all the stakeholders who have come before the Commission, continue to come before the Commission, all the community members, because the folks who come here to speak know their communities better than I ever will. And I'm grateful for the diversity of opinions and the facts and the insights shared that I always appreciated having that to inform my own deliberations about anything before the Commission. So it's been a privilege to serve on the commission, and I thank you all so much for your time, and I will see you around, I'm sure.

Good evening, commissioners. Can I get a little on this board here? I just wanted to... Show a little something here before you start my time. But before I do that, I want to give honor to the employee that was here for 40-something years, because my presence here is to talk about your history, that most of y'all are young. I mean, not young, but no- Excuse me, Mr. Washington, SFGov.

OK. OK, hold up.

Right, okay, thank you very much. So with that, like I said, I want to give honor to the employee that was here for 41 years, but my history, what I'm telling y'all about, it goes back to the beginning when y'all had the urban renewal, when y'all weren't around, which we call Negro removal, okay? So... I'm here speaking on behalf of the Western Edition community. As you see there, I was awarded Asona Cates, the ambassador, for all of my work in Fillmore. So I think what I'm getting ready to say has weight to it, OK? OK, so my problem right now is what y'all bringing into our community was called the Fillmore Community Action Plan. You plan on coming to our community today. But I'll be there to say, listen, this needs to halt. Stop it. Because you guys, Planning Commission, and the person that's sitting at the end there, I'm not going to call her out, has been involved with coming to our community ever since the mayor and the supervisor came with this plan last year. The plan, it lacks community support. It lacks community input. But you all put together this so-called Committed together that's supposed to be a year of your rubber stamp. I'm telling y'all right now as the Fillmore corridor Ambassador, I'm not the mayor. I'm not the supervisor But damn it. I am the Fillmore corridor ambassador and put some respect on that name So right now I'm saying the plan that you have now is it's not working people that's on it. That's confused They've been counseling so I'll be there today to tell them you need to take it back to the drawing board and And I'm not going to go into details. I couldn't come to the meetings that y'all had. When I came up there, I'm not going to say it. They didn't want to let me in there. And then I spoke to someone, and I ain't going to say she knew who I'm talking about. She accused me of not even should be there. and telling that I'll call the police on you to have you removed from the building. That's how extensive this stuff has been going on, how personal I feel against it. I'm 72 years old. I've been involved with community politics in San Francisco, in the Fillmore, for all those years. And all those years, we had been saying, you guys created the urban renewal. But the Negro removal has been forgotten, that we've been replaced, erased. We only have a few people left in our community, and y'all coming to our community telling us that y'all got this new plan. Well, stop it. Stop. My name is Ace, damn it. I'm on the case. I still got 28 seconds. All right, I'm doing pretty good. So I just want to say, right now, you can take that off that, and let me have some, yeah, so they can see who I am. My name is Ace. I'm on the case. I'm the Fillmore Corridor Ambassador. Not the bastard, but the ambassador. So I'm hoping that I'll take heed to what I'm saying. Come out to the meeting today. You'll see what's going on at the Cultural Center. Thank you very much.

Hi, good afternoon. Welcome to the new commissioners. Welcome back, Commissioner Koppel. I'm Georgia Shudish, and I've lived in San Francisco for 47 years and in Noe Valley for 40 years. In 2021, the department deemed Noe Valley, quote, an epicenter of de facto demolition. Since 2015, I have been before the commission fairly regularly talking about, mostly about, Section 317. I am looking forward to the hearing for the code implementation document for Section 317.2. Last week, the Commission approved the project at 230 Anza Street. It was the first HCSF project before the Commission. It was called a needle by Commissioner McGarry because it will be 85 feet high and actually reaching 95 feet due to the roof deck and the stair elevator penthouse. He said there would be many more like it. Calling it a needle may not be a compliment, but it is accurate because the financial feasibility study for the FCP said that the most viable projects would be on the lots of 2,500 square feet. This is the exact size of the lot at 230 Anza and the basic lot size in the residential neighborhoods throughout the city. Given their financial feasibility, when the commission hears these projects, the following should be addressed. One. construction issues around this type of major construction, including the impacts on the adjacent lot line properties from excavation, shoring, dust, and noise. In the past, neighbors' concerns and any mitigation could be addressed at the Board of Appeals regarding these issues. Neighbors, both renters and owners, need the city to look out for them under streamlining. Two, The issue of selling the entitlement was correctly raised by Commissioner So. Further discussion should be had about the potential sales price and the HOA fees of new market rate condos, like those proposed on ANSA under the FCP, because we are in an affordable housing crisis affecting everyone, including families across all income levels. Projects like this with three-fours of concrete will be expensive. as Commissioner Braun noted in his comments. Three, finally, if these needles will be popping up all over the Richmond and Sunset, it is important to know the condition, tenure, and occupancy of the housing that will be demolished to build them. and to make sure that the neighbors have a proactive community liaison that the neighbors and the zoning administrator can be in easy contact with. So here's what I just said. Copy for all of you. Here is my 150 words for the minutes. And here's an article you may have missed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. 7,200 units. They say they're coming. They interviewed John Ram, and they say they're coming. They're starting. So that's for you, too. And that's it. Thank you. And again, welcome and good luck. Thank you.

OK, last call for general public comment for items not on today's agenda. Seeing none, general public comment is closed. And we can move on to your regular calendar, commissioners, for item 7, case number 2026-005357, PCA. For signs and mixed use districts, planning code amendment.

Good afternoon, commissioners, and welcome. Welcome back to our new commissioners. I'm Veronica Flores with planning department staff and currently serve as the acting manager of legislative affairs. This next item is the signs and mixed use districts ordinance introduced by Supervisor Dorsey. And we have Miss Madison Tam to introduce the item. So I'll invite her to speak to share a few remarks, and I will come back with the staff presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Veronica. Good afternoon, Commissioners, and welcome to Commissioner McDonald, Chen, and Koppel. Looking forward to working with you as you step into this role. This ordinance supports businesses that are investing and contributing in our neighborhoods. Many of our existing signage controls weren't built with larger parcels in mind, and this creates a real mismatch. A building occupying a major footprint in a mixed-use district should have signage that reflects the scale of its presence. THIS ORDINANCE FIXES THAT BY SCALING SIGN ALLOWANCES TO LOT SIZE SO THAT BUSINESSES ON PARCELS HALF AN ACRE OR LARGER CAN ACTUALLY BE SEEN AND FOUND BY THE CUSTOMERS, WORKERS, AND VISITORS THAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SERVE. THE STAFF REPORT POINTS TO A CONCRETE EXAMPLE OF WHY THIS MATTERS. A PARCEL IN THE MIXED-USE OFFICE DISTRICT SOUTH OF TOWNSEND STREET NEAR THE BALLPARK, EXACTLY THE KIND OF AREA WHERE THE CITY SHOULD BE INVESTING IN BUSINESSES AND THEIR SUCCESS AND WHERE VISIBILITY AND FLIP TRAFFIC MATTER GREATLY. For that parcel, the ordinance allows additional signage. This legislation aligns with general plan policies supporting the retention of existing commercial tenants and attraction of new ones and recognizes that signage is a part of what makes a commercial area work. As the staff report notes, this kind of support matters most in mixed-use areas still working to attract tenants and visitors in a difficult economic environment with office vacancies. When businesses invest in San Francisco, we should invest in policies that support them and the neighborhoods around them so that they can succeed together. We respectfully urge the Commission to adopt a recommendation of support for this legislation, and I am available for questions.

And again, the proposed ordinance would provide additional sign flexibility for larger parcels that are half acre in size or larger, particularly those within the mixed-use office district south of Townsend Street. This includes an increase in the number, size, and height and allowance of the signs. For the record, I do want to note that page two of the staff report references a maximum 60-foot height limit for wall signs, but that height limit actually applies for the urban mixed-use districts. The correct height for mixed-use districts is actually 24 feet, so I just wanted to clarify that for the record. The proposed ordinance would allow mixed-use office parcels south of Townshend, the larger parcels south of Townshend, to install an additional wall sign per frontage up to 80 square feet in area and 80 feet in height with limited projection and specific illumination standards. And on the overhead, I have a rough approximation of what one of these such signs may look like. And once it comes online, you will see there is a green box. SFGov, can I please have the overhead? This green box demonstrates the maximum area of what a potential sign may look like under this proposed ordinance. The way that the sign measurements work, we measure the area based on the maximum height and maximum vertical width of such sign. So this green box is not the actual sign, it's just the maximum approximation. The department supports the ordinance because it improves navigation and reduces confusion on large parcels within the mixed-use office district. It enhances economic vitality and pedestrian orientation. While the department generally does not advocate for narrowly crafted ordinances, the department recognizes that the mixed-use office districts include a single large parcel here and that the additional sign flexibility is appropriate for a site of this size and for the building of this nature. We recommend that you adopt a recommendation of approval of the proposed ordinance. And this concludes the staff presentation. I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Okay, with that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the Commission on this matter.

Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Tom Tunney of Rubin Junius and Rose, speaking in strong support for this legislation. Staff captured it well in that this legislation corrects an anomaly in the code, frankly, where you have very large properties and large buildings subject to sign controls that were designed for smaller properties, smaller buildings. We have one client in particular at the site that was identified. Sierra AI is a San Francisco company. They're taking a very large space, 250,000 square feet. They're about to move in. And they would just like to have signage appropriate for size use like that. We recognize there are other interests at play. We submit that this legislation strikes a balance of those interests. And so we strongly support it. It helps not just companies like Sierra, but smaller companies at this particular property just with identifying signage and business signage where they otherwise wouldn't be entitled to it. And it just encourages this commercial activity. So with that, again, I urge your strong support for this legislation. Thank you.

Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed. This matter is now before you, commissioners.

Commissioner McGarry.

Stan, it's been a problem for a long time. Everybody has to come basically one parcel at a time. This legislation, I think, is long overdue. It'll bring flexibility, uniformity, and scale that basically will work for everybody. I would make a motion to approve this.

Second.

Mission or so.

I think I genuinely agree with this legislation amendment for planning code. I have one question I would like maybe Madison or Veronica can clarify in terms of lighting of the signage. The question is, is these illuminations to be in direct lighting or is this going to be a glowing light box? Just wanted to clarify.

Sure. Thank you, Commissioner. So the intention is not to be a full flood box. It's really meant to be just the light from the rear of the sign. So if we're imagining, a lot of signs are just the letters. So it's affixed to the rear and illuminates out. But it is then illuminated. sort of muffled because of the sign itself. There is no direct light onto this. So it is minimal lighting impacts. Okay.

It's like indirect illumination, basically back-lighting. Yes. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Well, with that regard, I support the motion of my colleagues.

Thank you, Commissioner McDonald.

So I have a question, hopefully a clarification. Under the way it would be where you say it could be up to 80 feet in height, does that mean that it could be 80 feet off the ground? So it could be high up on a building?

Thank you, Commissioner McDonald. Yes, the way we measure the height of a sign is at grade to the top of the sign. And if I could, SFGov, can I have the overhead again, please? Just in this rough approximation, we would be measuring the 80 feet in height from grade up to the top of the sign. So that's where we're measuring the 80 here.

OK, thank you. So is it correct to assume that the idea is that probably a lot of these signs will actually be up high on buildings, maybe oriented towards the freeways or points of view that are up high? Just trying to understand what their thinking is here.

Thank you. So part of this is just given the site context, and this is positioned right along Mission Creek, so there is more visibility to it, and the 80 feet maximum height provides that flexibility, that allowance. We, as staff, we don't know what the ultimate proposal will be, but this does give them what we're trying to provide of the flexibility here.

Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the code amendments. I think loosening what we have as generally restrictive signage controls in San Francisco is welcome. I think what I don't love about it is that it's limited, I think, essentially to one, and I know you mentioned this in your comments, but I think it's essentially limited to one building. Is that correct? Yeah. So while I can support it today, I would love to find a way that we can apply this. There's this great quote in the packet. This allows more sign flexibility than larger parcels within mixed-use districts to support the vitality of mixed-use areas that continue to struggle to attract tenants, workers, and visitors in the current economic environment. I suspect there are other half-acre lots that would benefit from this in other mixed-use districts.

COMMISSIONER CAMPBELL, I'LL SAY IF YOU RECOMMEND THAT, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT THE SUPERVISOR WILL CERTAINLY CONSIDER AS A BROADER POLICY FOR A SEPARATE PIECE OF LEGISLATION. BECAUSE WE DO HEAR CONTINUOUSLY THAT SIGNAGE IS AN ISSUE. IT'S USUALLY NOT THE SAME SIGNAGE ISSUE. WE'RE USUALLY TALKING ABOUT DIFFERENT ZONING DISTRICTS, DIFFERENT BUILT ENVIRONMENTS, DIFFERENT THINGS PEOPLE ARE ASKING FOR. SO THERE'S NOT LIKE ONE SOLUTION, BUT I THINK WHAT YOU'RE REFERENCING, MAYBE WE SHOULD LOOSEN THINGS UP FOR LARGE LOTS OF SOMETHING WE CAN CERTAINLY CONSIDER.

Those are all my comments. Commissioner Chen.

Thank you, President Campbell. Just a quick note. I think maybe seven years ago, remember, Supervisor Catherine Stephanie had some legislation that allowed retail stores to have both a wall sign and a projecting sign, because I think at some point in the 90s that had been forbidden, but largely flouted. And there are places, if you could go to Chinatown or the Mission Street or Valencia Street, people had two signs, three signs. It was signs everywhere. No one had ever enforced it except for in cases someone had called and reported Scopo di Vino in District 2 to the planning department. So I agree with President Campbell's comments about trying to find ways that we can make signs better and easier for commercial businesses.

I think that's it.

Very good, Commissioners. If there's nothing further, there is a motion that has been seconded to adopt a recommendation for approval on that motion. Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Soe? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, Commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0, placing us on item 8 for case number 2026-005790PCA, Commercial to Residential Adaptive Reuse Planning Code Amendment.

Good afternoon, commissioners, new commissioners, returning commissioners, Lily Langlois, planning department staff. The item before you is an ordinance that would amend the planning code to make adjustments to the city's existing commercial to residential adaptive reuse program to address planning code barriers to conversion projects. This legislation was introduced on June 30th by Supervisor Dorsey. I'm joined by Madison Tam with Supervisor Dorsey's office, and she'll say a few words, and then I'll come back with the staff report.

Good afternoon again, commissioners. This one applies broader than just one lot. Madison Tim here representing Supervisor Dorsey again. This legislation builds on work that the board has undertaken to make it easier to convert underused office and commercial space into housing. These projects achieve our goals of addressing vacancies, revitalizing downtown, and building more housing. Over the last three years, the Board of Supervisors have adopted a suite of policies to facilitate adaptive reuse projects that convert underused office space and commercial space. This includes the establishment of the program in 2023, waivers on impact fees, transfer tax exemptions, and establishing the downtown revitalization financing district. We are finally starting to see some of this work pay off, with several new applications for adaptive reuse projects being submitted recently. Today's legislation continues these efforts by addressing physical and operational requirements, parking, loading, and car share obligations that may pose a real challenge to some projects. Parking maximums, loading requirements, and street furniture requirements, FAR, and car share obligations may be incompatible with the physical layout of buildings being converted. And satisfying them could be the difference between a project penciling or never happening. By adjusting these requirements, this ordinance removes a small but very real barrier. The cost savings of modifying these requirements can help move these projects closer to feasibility and finally help us achieve the aims of this program. Supervisor Dorsey supports the staff recommendations that you will hear about in a moment, and he urges your support for this legislation. And I am available for questions.

Thanks, Madison. So I'll just share a little background about the program for the benefit of the public and some of the new commissioners. So as part of the city's efforts to revitalize downtown, the department has been working closely with other city agencies to address both the regulatory and financial barriers to converting office buildings to housing, adaptive reuse being one tool to repurpose existing buildings and bring more people and life to downtown and to support the city's tax base. In July of 2023, the city established the Commercial to Residential Adaptive Reuse Program, which now lives in Planning Code Section 210.5. The program allows adaptive reuse projects downtown to waive certain planning code requirements, such as lot coverage, open space, streetscape and pedestrian improvements, dwelling unit exposure, bike parking, and dwelling unit mix. This legislation was heard by this commission in May of 2023, and to date, the department has received four applications for projects under this program. The premise of this program is based on the idea that certain requirements we typically expect in new development could be waived for adaptive reuse in order to make these projects feasible and to advance our broader downtown revitalization goals. The planning code waivers take into account that the building already exists today. The ordinance before you builds on the 2023 legislation and would amend the planning code to exempt commercial to residential adaptive reuse projects from additional requirements, including residential parking maximums and accessory parking limitations, off-street loading requirements, street frontage requirements, FAR limits, and car share. The department is supportive of the ordinance and has proposed four modifications. Three were included in the staff report and one I will read into the record today. The first is, under the current program, there is currently a waiver for bike parking. The department recommends modifying this language to waive the bike parking requirement only when a project does not provide accessory off-street auto parking and allow these projects some flexibility on how the bike parking requirement is met with respect to type and location. The second modification is the legislation before you waives the street furniture requirement. The department recommends modifying the language to waive the street furniture requirement only for any project that is providing ground floor accessory off-street parking. This modification to the ordinance would ensure that the waiver of the street furniture requirement would only apply to a specific existing condition and is not available to all projects. A technical modification would be to add section 150C off street loading requirements to subsection 210.5D11 along with section 152 and 152.1. And this would just consolidate all the loading related provisions into one line item. And lastly, under 210.5D, off-street parking and loading in C3 districts, the off-street parking and loading requirements in section 155S shall not apply to any existing off-street parking and loading that is retained to serve new residential uses as long as the parking is within or on the same lot as the existing structure containing the new residential use. This modification to the ordinance would provide flexibility for existing buildings that may have parking on the ground floor. The department recommends that the commission approve with modifications that propose ordinance and adopt the attached resolution. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter.

Good afternoon commissioners president Campbell director Dennis Phillips. Nice to see you all and It's been a long time So I have my own development company SDG and through that and through my prior role as a SPUR board member had been working on the feasibility of conversions in downtown San Francisco for three-plus years now. And I want, first of all, just to commend the team, the broad team in the city that's been doing that, the work that you all have done here, the planning department staff, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, particularly Jacob Bintliff and Madison and Supervisor Dorsey for supporting this. And obviously, I'm here to support it. And I would just say that What we've seen in the last 12 to 18 months is great for downtown, the interest in office space. And it's made it even a little bit harder for conversions to be feasible. And so little things like this become essential in those buildings that really should not continue to be office buildings. And so I just ask for your support on this.

Good afternoon, commissioners and new commissioners and returning commissioners. Mark Babson with Emerald Fund. As Jack said, we're doing a project together. But we've looked at... a couple dozen buildings, and actually found one that works. This is 150 Hays. It has three floors of parking, as it turns out, four floors of office above it. And it's like, oh, wow, to make this work. 210.5 was great, and it was the first shot out three years ago. The planning department's like, oh, we're going to do this, this, and this to make the projects work. We found a building, and they're like, oh, we actually need this and this and this to make it work. And this may apply to other buildings as well. But these are kind of make sense fixes that allow between 100 and 405 units to pencil. and in Civic Center. And so we're going to submit an application on Friday. We're still on target for. And yeah, actually take an old office building and convert it into residential. Yay. So thank you to Lily and Jacob, who have been part of this from the start, and Madison and Supervisor Dorsey's office. So thank you.

Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed. This matter is not before you, commissioners.

Commissioner McDonald.

Hi. So converting vacant office buildings to residential will bring so much needed vitality to parts of San Francisco. It's a really exciting thing that we're doing. And I see the rationales for revising the planning regulations to take into account the existing conditions of commercial buildings that could be converted to residential. It makes so much sense to do that, and particularly to remove the really onerous regulations that exist. I do have one concern, and maybe it's really a question. about the interface between those converted buildings and the ground floor public realm. The proposed changes would eliminate furniture requirements for buildings containing the existing ground floor parking. But is it correct that there are some other requirements related to that ground floor interface intended to create a pedestrian-friendly public realm that would still remain in effect?

There's requirements around, for example, active uses. So those would retain. So this is just around the street frontage requirements. It's around transparency, rules around building height, things like that. That if you had parking at the ground floor, you would not have to meet those requirements. But if you have an existing building that has ground floor commercial that is now vacant, that type of use would have to fulfill the street frontage requirement.

Okay. Thank you very much for that.

Commissioner Koppel?

Yeah, I remember years past, one of the hindrances we had to recovering after COVID and the over-concentration of office downtown, we didn't have enough residents or customers to keep the businesses afloat. We talked about Union Square, for instance, just utilizing opportunities to put more residents with more businesses nearby to keep those businesses afloat. So glad to see that we're still revisiting this and getting ready getting rid of any of the hindrances to helping this happen Motion approved second

I'll just pile on to that sentiment that I do, and that public comment around commending the city. I do think that they've done a tremendous job lowering the barriers and incentivizing office conversion as best they can, especially in downtown. I think they've implemented every recommendation that SPUR made several years ago at this point. So this is just one more thing I think that's really going to help move the needle. And it's very exciting to hear that we have some finally moving forward. So I wish you best of luck with that project. And this also has my full support, obviously, because I seconded the motion. And I think we're ready to go.

Indeed, if there's no further deliberation, commissioners, there is a motion that has been seconded to adopt a recommendation for approval with modifications on that motion. Commissioner Chen?

Aye.

Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner So? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved. Commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 6-0. Placing us on item 9 for case number 2026-006300-OTH for the Office Development Annual Limit Program, Revocation and Allocation Policies. This is a Planning Commission policy.

Corey looked at me, so I'm going to give a little bit of an intro. He's the expert on this. But commissioners, I think what you're going to hear here on the office development policy that we're bringing before you, As a resolution of policy, it doesn't do anything to projects. And I just want to reinforce that as Corey walks you through the details. Much of what we talk about today and what Corey will walk you through as a proposed policy are actions that, per the code and per existing policies that the previous planning commissions have adopted, we could execute today. I think our real intent with bringing this item to you is to both inform you, inform project sponsors, and inform the public about the course of action that we're proposing we collectively as a department and a commission use over the next year or several years when we see a real limitation in our ability to construct and approve new office. So just want you to view it in that context and I'll turn it over to Corey.

Okay. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, President Campbell, commissioners, new commissioners. Good to see you all this afternoon. My name is Corey Teague. I'm the zoning administrator here for the department. And again, we are going to be going over, giving some background on the program itself, just to lay a foundation and then present some specific policy recommendations for your consideration. So again, we'll begin with just a bit of program history and some mechanics. We'll go pretty quickly through that. The program was amended pretty significantly by Proposition E, and it's important to understand how that occurred and what it means. And then we'll go into kind of the historical and current numbers in the program and then the specific policy proposals. So what is the Office Development Annual Limit Program? So this was a program that was designed to kind of limit major office development. And it's citywide. It's independent of any zoning districts or neighborhoods. And it applies to any office development of at least 25,000 square feet. And it provides 950,000 square feet for the city each year to allocate to office projects. 75,000 of that goes into what's our small cap for 25 to 50,000 square foot projects. And the remainder goes into what we call our large cap for large office projects of at least 50,000 square feet. So originally, this program was adopted by the Board of Supervisors as part of the downtown plan in 1985. But it was a much more limited program. It was a three-year program, just under 3 million square feet. It was a very different program than what we have here today. And that is a program that was adopted in 1986. So this is Prop M. When you hear people talk about Prop M, there's actually many Prop M's throughout history. But this Prop M in 1986 was specific to kind of take this program, expand it. And it really created a small cap that didn't exist before. And it made this kind of a permanent program, not a three-year limited program. And it created a program that allows unused allocation to roll over from year to year. But because it's a ballot initiative, it requires another ballot to make the program less restrictive. The board can make it more restrictive, but not less restrictive. So in terms of the mechanics, as we mentioned, it applies to any office project of at least 25,000 square feet. Anything that's unallocated in one year for either cap gets rolled over to the next year and so on and so on. And importantly, and this may be plain, but the commission can't allocate any space that doesn't exist in a large cap. So if you had... only 50,000 square feet left in the large cap, you could not grant 70,000 square feet. It's important to be clear about that. But there are some exceptions, which we'll talk about when we talk about Prop E. Some of the other exceptions that are important to understand are state and federal buildings. So if the state or federal government builds an office building, we have to account for that. That's where footage comes out of the program. But because it's state and federal, it preempts local control. There's not a requirement for planning commission review or approval. But we do have to account for it. Similarly, SF port and redevelopment projects, we have to account for that. It comes out of the CAPS. How that gets approved and what the planning commission's role and when it comes out is kind of case by case, depending on whether it's a specific redevelopment plan or DA, et cetera. And then office buildings for the city and county of San Francisco are simply not part of the program. They're not accounted for. So when it comes to revocations, the Planning Commission is authorized to revoke an allocation if a project has not commenced construction within 18 months of approval. Now, understandably, that's a very tight tie line. It's definitely not been the practice in the past to kind of Month 19, bring projects back for revocation. Typically, projects, when they're entitled, have what is the standard three-year performance period, where we're kind of expecting some kind of permit to be issued within that time. And then if you go past that, if you want to use it in the future, you have to come back for an extension. The Planning Commission did also define what commenced construction means per a resolution adopted in 2002 that was in your packet. And then in both that resolution and a 2009 resolution, they set policies to revoke, to not revoke, sorry, active projects during those economic downturns. And that's kind of the context we're still in today. It is important to know that a revocation does require a public hearing and for the Planning Commission to vote to approve that. They are appealable. But also, projects can voluntarily forfeit office space back. If they've completely abandoned the project, they don't plan to use it, We don't have to go through that process. They can do it kind of administratively through a zoning administrator determination. And just for context, the last time we had like a round of revocations was 2019. We had five projects that had office allocations revoked at that time. So this is just a quick look, historically, of how much office space has been allocated by year since the program was adopted. You can see at the beginning, it was not particularly active in the 80s and early 90s. There was a big tick up during the dot-com boom in the late 90s, early 2000s. And of course, that came down. And then once we came out of the Great Recession, you can see in the teens, there was a real spike in allocations, leading all the way up to basically 2020 when COVID hit and We've seen a big decline in allocations since then. So if we're looking at the current status of the program, the small cap is very healthy, over 600,000 square feet. But the large cap only has a little over 800,000 square feet in it. And then we have current active applications on file for a little over 2 million square feet being requested. It's important to note that's the amount being requested. Of course, what would get allocated would likely be much less than that. And then we mentioned port and redevelopment projects. We are aware of over 2 million square feet of port projects that are planned, but those are multi-year, multi-decade projects. Those come out as each project is developed. And right now, there's not estimated to be any of those projects coming forward that would pull down from the program within the next two years. So what is Proposition E? This is really the first big amendment to the program. And this was adopted in 2020 by the voters. And on a broad scale, it links allocation of office space to the production of housing. And more specifically, it ties it to the production of affordable housing and then It provides some specific controls just within Central Salma. So it gives some limitations in Central Salma, but also gives some flexibility as well that I'll go into. And then it allows some projects to be allocated office space, even if it would take the program into the red, even if there's not technically space there to allocate, which is an important distinction. So one of the big restrictions that Prop E created is that I mentioned every year the lodge cap gets 875,000 square feet to allocate, and any unused rolls over. Under Prop E, that annual allotment is reduced by the percentage of RHNA affordable housing goal that we don't meet. So just to take this year as an example, on October 17 of this year, we're going to get our annual allotment, which is 875,000 square feet. But because, as you can see, we only produced approximately 25% of our affordable housing goal last year, the amount we'll actually receive is just over $200,000. So a big difference. And that's basically been the case ever since Prop E was adopted. So we've seen these reduced annual allotments for the last six years. So in central Selma, again, there are restrictions and flexibility. First of all, it put a cap on all office allocations granted in central Selma of 6 million square feet until at least 15,000 housing units are produced within the larger Selma area. And that's starting in 2017. 2019. This does not affect the small cap at all, and as of today, $5.2 million of that permitted $6 million has been allocated in central SOMA. But then the property also created these two reserves. And the really important thing about these reserves, again, is that they allow these allocations to happen even if we don't have the space available in the large cap. So the first one is the housing balance reserve. We've had one project approved under that reserve. It applies citywide. And it's pretty straightforward. Essentially, if you're proposing an office project that within the same project includes the amount of affordable housing necessary to meet the demand of that office space, and there's a specific formula in Prop E, then that can be allocated regardless of how much space we have in the cap. And this is an unlimited reserve. And many projects that meet this criteria can be approved. In Central Soma, there's also a reserve. And this was really designed for the key sites in Central Soma, because when property was adopted, it was right after Central Soma had been adopted. And there were these key development sites that had very specific community benefits. And so this reserve allows those projects, because they're creating and providing those community benefits, to do the same kind of drawdown. But it was limited to only 1.7 million square feet. So it's not an unlimited reserve. And we've had four projects approved under that reserve. And the other key about this, beyond just the ability to go into the red, is that these allocations from either of these reserves are not an all-at-once allocation, which is typical for projects. They are essentially a 10% per year allocation. So for example, if a If using one of these reserves, a project was approved today for 100,000 square feet, the first 10,000 wouldn't come out until October 17th of this year and then every October 17th for the next 10 years until that project is completely drawn down. And I won't touch on the details here, but one other big change that probably made was significant changing to the review criteria that the Planning Commission must consider when looking at new allocations. OK, so with that background, we have three specific recommendations for the Planning Commission to consider adopting. As Director Phillips mentioned, the Planning Commission has the authority to do kind of ad hoc revocations based on the parameters of the code and Prop M now. But the goal here is to provide a really clear and rational revocation structure so all the stakeholders are kind of aware of what we're doing up front. And the proposal is to do that through a three-tier system. So tier one is what you may consider projects that are the most ripe for revocation. These are projects that have gone past their performance period, and they basically demonstrated no real progress towards completion. So that means they don't have any issue demolition site or building permit. or really any other activity. And for projects that would fall into this tier, our recommendation is to essentially schedule revocation hearings for those projects after the recess, so September, October. Tier two projects, just a step further, again, large cap projects that are past their performance period. But these projects have demonstrated some progress. So they have at least an issued demo permit or a site or building permit, but they've not made additional progress. So for example, they haven't obtained a first construction document or they're not actually under construction yet. For these projects, the recommendation is that we give them 18 months to kind of provide or make additional progress. But for projects that don't, that fall in this tier, after that 18-month period, then schedule those to return to consider revocation. And the last tier is tier three. And it includes two different types of projects. The first is projects that rely on a development agreement. Again, large-cap projects past their performance period. And these projects have used basically none or only a portion of their allocations within the DA. And for these, the recommendation is to schedule revocation hearings for these allocations at the conclusion of each DA phase. And that's going to be different for each project in each development agreement. And then for other projects that were required to and have delivered certain public benefits already to the city, again, these constituting large-cap projects that haven't used all or any other allocation yet, the recommendation is to schedule for revocation kind of as appropriate and just considering each project's specific circumstances. So the second policy we're proposing is looking forward towards new allocations and specifically setting a few additional priorities. The Planning Commission already has some priorities adopted in the past for certain areas like Mission Bay and Treasure Island. But this recommendation is to adopt a policy to give future projects also some level of priority if they do one of the following, which is include housing in the project, and especially if that is affordable housing. If they've already commenced construction or have a first construction document, there's already some level of shovel ready. Or if they're a project that has voluntarily forfeited some of their office space in the past, and now they have an application for a project that will advance a real and developable project. And then the third and final recommendation is for future allocations. And here, as I mentioned, most of our projects have a standard three-year performance period. And after that three years, the language that we adopt doesn't automatically require those projects to come back for revocation if they haven't met that threshold. It's more flexible. The proposal here is essentially make any projects that we allocate in the future, because this is a tight situation, to make sure if they haven't actually had a demolition site or building permit issued within those three years, then automatically that allocation would be scheduled for revocation at the end of that three-year performance period. So just a slightly more strict performance period requirement for new allocations. So that concludes our presentation. I will just mention, I believe the commissioners all got it by email, but what was handed out to you was a copy of the presentation, but also a slightly updated copy of the draft resolution that has some very minor tweak language in tier three, just for clarity. But we are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Zoning Administrator. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the Commission on this matter. You need to come forward. Seeing none, public comment is closed, and this item is now before you, Commissioners.

Mr. Teague, could you answer a few questions? I found it helpful during the briefing just to kind of help put the different tiers into perspective, kind of what quantity of projects we're talking about that are currently fall in each tier. Is it like two in tier one? It just sort of brings a little bit of perspective to, are we not talking about that?

It's dynamic, I think, is the way I would state it. So one of the things that's interesting about this policy is we look at projects now and what state they are now and how much they've advanced their project, and that could change within two months. So what we're trying to do is adopt a policy that is live moving forward. I will say, at the state we're in now, the bulk of the projects that we're looking at, there are a handful of projects in Tier 1 that haven't moved forward, and that just happens. You entitle a project and it doesn't move forward. There are a significant number of projects in Tier 2, projects that really received their allocation right before the pandemic hit, thought they were going to move forward. I will speak as a foreigner developer of one of those projects. You know, we were ready to go, demoed a project, pulled site and building permits, and then the pandemic hit. And so a lot of projects are in that Tier 2 just because of the nature of the very pandemic. And then, of course, all of our DA projects are in Tier 3. But I think the other important thing and the reason we're not calling out projects or offering a table with this is because projects can move between those tiers based on their own actions. And that's why we're trying to set it up as a policy and not based on projects specifically. Whatever project falls in that tier, you'll see it when it comes before you. We'll calendar a hearing, and we'll discuss project by project each condition. I think we find it easier to talk about it on a policy basis and then look at each project when they come before us individually.

And then in terms of policy three, when we talk about this three-year performance period and that it would be sort of this automatic revocation if construction has not commenced, sometimes projects get caught with all of the best intentions, they get caught in processes, some of which are some of them are just out of their control. If there's good effort going towards this, but it still hasn't commenced construction, does that get Does that get considered in this, or is it just an auto-revocation?

MARK TUSHNETT- Sure. Well, before the allocation, they should have all their CEQA wrapped up. So that shouldn't be an issue. So that shouldn't get in our way. MARK TUSHNETT- We have to have CEQA done before we can approve the project. So that shouldn't be an issue. But I hear what you're saying, which is, Projects find themselves in different circumstances for different reasons after three years, and it's hard to know what that's going to be. I think what's important is right now we have the authority, the Planning Commission has the authority, to do this on an ad hoc basis. You could pull a project back after three years regardless of what the performance period says. But the language is more passive in the sense that if a project tries to move forward after that three-year period and they didn't hit the threshold, they're going to have to come back for an extension. The goal here is to have that hard stop and say, after the three years, you just have to come back. If you haven't been able in three years to get a permit issued, and again, which is kind of like, this is just a site permit, not like actual construction documents.

OK, fair.

But again, the other thing that's important is the recommendation is to schedule a revocation hearing. The board, the commission may choose not to revoke. A project will have its opportunity through a public hearing to kind of make their case. And if the planning commission feels that it makes sense to not revoke it and allow a longer performance period, the commission will have the ability to do that.

Thank you. Commissioner Koppel.

Yeah, the smartest thing I think we can do to set up downtown to be successful is create this predictability. So I think that's clearly been done here, and thank you for just being clear and transparent. A lot of these developers have outlying circumstances that can dictate if and when they can start construction, and a lot of that's out of their control. So I appreciate the thoughtful work.

Commissioner Soh.

I have been reading this for quite some time, and I have to say this is a situation where no one wants to be in. So not us, not anyone out there trying to get anything built, but we are in this situation of economy had a lot of few things that layer over it. There's COVID, and then there was now we have war. So I really want to emphasize that when we decided to revoke or encourage other previous project sponsor to give up their previous office allocation. We wanted to do it more fairly and I think that's identifying them, each project has its own story and history and then you have put it down to three different tiers and it's actually really clear and transparent. But I was just going to emphasize I don't think anyone like this and I really wish that we have some other better way as we move forward with our city holistically find a better sustainable way and fair way to move forward with this let it be putting another proposition on the voters that will be something it will be good to know I actually probably had a question I might already know the answer might be it's a dead end but I But the port has so much massive square footages. I'm looking at your slide, Corey. It's like 2.5 million. And it will draw us down gradually over a period of years. I don't know how many years. Are we talking about decades or a century? Is there a way to, since the port is a different jurisdiction anyways, is there a way to kind of track those? in its own merits so then it's not drawing down the rest of what the city needs to alleviate this situation that we're in right now.

Sure. Thank you for the question. I mean, the short answer there is to do that, to consider port projects in a different way in terms of how they count towards a program that would require a voter approval. Because having the port projects being taken out of the large cap or small cap is part of what was originally adopted in Prop M. So that kind of change, you're correct that if that If that was different, then that would be a different, it would take that worry and that pressure off the program, but it would require.

So a slight amendment to Prop M will still require voter?

Yes. Yeah. For structural changes like that, that would require voter approval.

I see. And how many years are you talking about here for the gradually drawn down our supply on allocation? Over like 10, 5, or a century later where all of us are not here?

Sure, absolutely. And I don't want to get out over my skis for the port, because obviously for any long-term development plans like that, once you start getting out too far, it's very hard. And obviously that's a question they would need to answer. What we can report today, again, is that through our coordination with the port, we're not aware of any projects within that that are estimated to come forward within the next two years. Beyond that, you know, it's tough to say.

Okay, thank you. One last question. So what will come in front of us after the summer recess is the Tier 1 projects. As of right now, I know everything's going to be moving, right, like depending on... what happened in the next 30 days. But just right now, I really appreciate your team, by the way, Sarah, you, and Nick Foster somewhere watching us here, do all these work. And I know it's been hard. It's really difficult. These conversations that you guys had with many stakeholders that are invested in the economic for our city, and those are our big... like, supporter for the city, and they chose not to leave our city and go somewhere else. So I would like to restore trust with these people. But I also want to know, what are you anticipating the total number of office allocation that will come in front of us as a Tier 1 in September and October?

Maybe I'll talk to that, Corey, if that's OK. I think it's hard to say, Commissioner. So one of the things that we are working with as we talk to projects, I think you noted this well, This is a hard policy to bring before us because as we know how development happens, how office development happens, how much office development happens in the port even. So much has changed since 1986 when many of these provisions were frozen in place. So we're working around those structures. I think one of the things we're working at is I think for a long time Prop M was treated as an asset almost, right? It's something you had to fight hard to get awarded by the Planning Commission, and then you held it. And unfortunately, we're just in an economic situation and a constraint situation because of the additional constraints added by Prop E that we can't allow that asset to be kind of held. Otherwise, our economic recovery will be hindered and our ability to understand what is the right kind of office that meets the moment and that will actually be built and provide construction jobs and provide real jobs once it's built isn't moving forward. Most of the project sponsors that we're talking to that are in any one of these tiers are in very dynamic circumstances. Some are in circumstances where they look at this policy and they're like, We have people we're actively talking to. This is enough of a push for us to move forward and try to move our project forward. Other project sponsors we talk to, frankly, are acknowledging this is a project we baked in 2015, 2018. It doesn't make sense now. And maybe it's something we want to voluntarily revoke rethink according to the market, right? Many of them still own the sites or at least have retained some title to the sites and come back to you for a new allocation once we've got a project that is ready to move forward and we're not just holding that asset. So I think it's hard to know what we'll be bringing forward because we're in many active conversations with project sponsors right now as they evaluate what their individual situation is. So we'll have a better answer to that question in September after the recess.

And then Commissioner, so if I could just respond to one thing. Thank you for your comments to staff. And I want to echo the sentiments for Nick Foster. He's had leg surgery and can't be here in person, but he's put a lot of work into this too. And so I want to make sure to acknowledge that as well.

Well, thank you. Thank you for all the hard work, and we'll make it through. We definitely want to see more things to build, houses and also offices. So that concludes my comment.

Thank you. This feels very logical to me. I think this idea of kind of hoarding the office allocation, we just can't afford to do that. And I think if we do provide enough runway, which I feel like the tiered approach is going to accommodate, then I think I'm in full support. I know we have three or four very promising office projects in the city, so making room for those to materialize I think will be really good for the city. And I also appreciate the thoughtfulness of the reallocation prioritizing housing and projects that sort of have like a higher readiness. I do have one kind of maybe nerdy question is when an office gets decommissioned or say if we start to see more office to residential conversions, does that score footage go back into the kitty?

So if it's a... office project that was allocated, built, used as office, and then is converted or demolished, et cetera, the old answer used to be a straight no. And the current answer is still it doesn't automatically come back into the cap. Another prop, more recently Prop C, was the most recent time the program was amended. And it addressed this issue specifically in two ways. One, if a project itself is demolishing kind of existing office and then building more office, so maybe you have a small office building, you're demolishing it to build a bigger office building, It used to be that you lost what you demolished. Once you demolish it, it goes away. But now you get credit for that. And then separately, if you're not building back an office, let's say you're doing an office to residential conversion, Prop C creates a program where we were required to do an inventory like a first time inventory a couple of years ago to try to find all the office conversions that had happened since 1985 and add those back in, which we did. I think we added about 2.2 million back in. Thank goodness. And we can do that again rolling over time. So it's not an immediate process, and it requires the conversion to completely happen, like through to CFC. So there's a time lag there, but eventually office conversions will find their way back into the program.

Thank you. That does sound familiar now that you're walking us through it. Thank you for that. Commissioner Koppel?

Do we need a motion to adopt?

Second.

There's nothing further, commissioners. There is a motion that has been seconded to adopt the commission policy on that motion. Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner So? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0. Commissioners, that will now place us on items 9, excuse me, 10A. through D for case numbers 2017-011878, DVA-03, PCA, MAP, CWP-02 for Pachero Power Station mixed use project amendments to a development agreement, planning code text amendments, zoning map amendments, and a design for development document.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Welcome to our new commissioners, and welcome back, Commissioner Koppel, though he stepped away. Monica Giacomucci with Planning Department staff. The items before you today are related to a package of amendments to the Potrero Power Station development agreement. We're joined by John Lau from the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. So before I get into the more technical aspects of what's before you today, I wanted to turn the presentation over to him to get us started.

Good afternoon, commissioners. John Lau with the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. I'm with the Land Use and Real Estate Group within the economic development side of the shop. And it's great to be back in front of this commission on this project. I'm reminded the last time I was at this podium on this project was part of the original entitlement process. So the hearing at which the commission recommended approval to the board was at the end of January 2020. And there was much anxiety in the air at that time about as COVID-19 was tightening its grip on the world, much uncertainty about what was to come. And as you were discussing in the last item, I think there's a direct link from that time six years ago to today, which explains why we're in front of you with a proposed set of modifications that we're requesting from you. And so that's the first point to underscore I think today is that the city negotiated this project and its public benefits program in a very different time, a very different economic climate than we find ourselves in today. And no one could foresee, and it's a long list from the dramatic swings in interest rates, asking rents, land prices, cost of materials, investor hesitancy, et cetera, the challenges that emerge from that point. And in spite of those challenges, this is a project sponsor who has found a way to not only develop but continue momentum in terms of accomplishing a very impressive amount, completing much horizontal infrastructure, finding creative financing ways to support 100% below market rate project. kept its foot on the go pedal forward. And so when they came to the city about a year ago expressing an interest in exploring some things that were in our development agreement with them that might, with some additional flexibility and relatively minor changes, move the project towards greater economic viability, we, of course, agreed. And the years-long collaboration around that is the product of that effort is before you today. So planning, your staff will get into a little bit more of the specifics on that, but I'll suggest to you that taking individually No one of those modifications is vastly significant or alters the original project or benefits package in any significant way. It is our collective hope that the sum total of those relatively minor modifications does have a positive effect on moving this project again towards economic viability and that's our shared goal, right, eventually implementation and full build out of this project. So themes that may jump out at you when you hear about those changes are flexibility, clarity, streamlining, and you'll recognize those as sort of core goals of this mayoral administration. that it seeks to foster in all kinds of public policy arenas. So in terms of development, an over-the-counter permit or a later approval related to a development agreement with a 30-year time horizon. Those are core principles that we've sought to implement here. So before we talk a little bit more about the changes in front of you, I'll just do a quick review of what the project was as approved in 2020 so that we have a base to start from. And you'll recall at that time, as there is now, great excitement about the level of public and private investment in this part of town, the city's central, broader central waterfront area. We can see and we know a lot that has happened in those years since. Thankfully, the kind of vibrancy we see in Mission Rock and Mission Bay. We know the Pier 70 is happening in the the investments in the T3 light rail, the clarity in zoning that the eastern neighborhoods brought. So this has been a very important piece of that sort of puzzle in the district. Let me go to the next slide, please. And here's just a quick review, a hybrid of the Lanty's plan. and a sort of massing study, a healthy dose of housing and office lab, a mixed balance and mixed use program here. We'll go to the next slide. A key feature which is really activation of this part of the city's waterfront and so much of the essential thrust of what we're all trying to accomplish here. Again, this is waterfront that has never been open to the public. So through some of this port property, and the port was an important partner in our original entitlements, through improvements the sponsor will make under the terms of a lease with the port and on some property that they own in fee. This is the kind of vitality in urban waterfront neighborhood that we really don't have this type of experience in San Francisco today. It's an exciting opportunity. And then just, I won't read through all these bullets, but a quick review of really a robust public benefits package that we negotiated, both its breadth in terms of across topics and the depth at which we got into some of these topics. 30% of all housing delivered at below market rates stays the same. It's not something that we touched at all in the last year's worth of work and remains a central component to the project. And so I'll leave you with just a little rendering of the vitality we all are seeking to sort of enable with these changes today. And I'll hand it back to Monica, I think.

Great. Thank you, John, for setting the context for the amendments that are before us today. I will present some of the core technical elements of the proposal before you, describe each of the action items under your consideration, outline some recent modifications, and finally, I'll turn the presentation over to the project sponsor team, Fifth Space. John mentioned lightly that city staff have been working with Fifth Space to amend the development agreement, design for development, or D4D. and Potrero Power Station Special Use District, or SUD, under Planning Code Section 249.87 to generally provide more flexibility and to facilitate ongoing implementation of the project over about the last year. In addition to increasing flexibility, the amendments address or clarify aspects of the project that were either not addressed in the previous DA package or were unclear. Your staff reports included a more in-depth list of changes to the DA, D4D, and SUD, but I do want to take a moment to just mention some of them at a very high level. Those include permitting either commercial or residential uses on Blocks 5 and 12 instead of only commercial uses. permitting certain uses and building features across the entire site, including public facilities, intermediate length occupancy units, and rooftop bars, allowing internet service exchange uses on Block 5 with a future conditional use authorization at this commission, increasing heights on all blocks where residential use is permitted by 8 feet, and increasing podium, street wall, and overall building heights on certain commercial blocks by a range of 15 to 30 feet, increasing parking limits for institutional health care and grocery uses, and permitting public use of accessory parking within specified amounts, waiving certain building standards for 100% affordable housing projects and modifying other standards such as open space to align with recent constraint reduction efforts in the planning code also for 100% affordable projects. Clarifying the delivery timelines of certain public benefits to align with completion of buildings rather than just development phases. changing what qualifies as a minor modification, increasing the amount of deviance from most standards from 10% to 15% to qualify for minor modifications, and delegating certain approval powers to the planning director. Of course, I am more than happy to discuss any of these in more depth should you have questions during your deliberation. To advance these amendments, Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Shimon Walton introduced two ordinances at the Board of Supervisors on June 30. First, an ordinance under board file number 260724 would authorize an amendment to the DA in the form of an amended and restated development agreement. Thank you. And secondly, the ordinance under board file number 260770 would amend the planning code and zoning map by modifying section 249.87, which is the power station special use district, and modifying height and bulk map HT08. So I have those written out or sorry I have Sort of the proposed amendments that you need to take action on today written out on this slide here just for your reference But I do want to take a moment to kind of state them I know we have a few new folks. I just want to make sure that it's clear what the actions are today and FIRST, IF YOU CHOOSE TO MOVE THIS PROJECT FORWARD, YOU'LL APPROVE A RESOLUTION RECOMMENDING APPROVAL OF THE AMENDED AND RESTATED DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT IN BOARD FILE NUMBER 260724 TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS. YOU'LL APPROVE A RESOLUTION RECOMMENDING APPROVAL OF THE PLANNING CODE AND MAP AMENDMENT ORDINANCE IN BOARD FILE NUMBER 260770 TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS. AND YOU'LL APPROVE A MOTION APPROVING AMENDMENTS TO THE DESIGN FOR DEVELOPMENT DOCUMENT. Since your staff report was published two weeks ago, planning, OEWD staff, the project sponsor, and the city attorney's office have worked together to fine tune some very, very targeted elements of the package before you that was included in your original staff report. I sent you a memo earlier this week which outlined both some non-substantive changes for just your information and clarity, as well as some more substantive changes. So those three substantive changes are listed on this next slide here, and those include additional language in the draft ordinance, power station SUD amendment ordinance, to allow above-grade accessory parking structures and privately-owned open spaces for ingress and egress to below-grade parking facilities. I do want to note that this was already accounted for in the D4D, and then city attorney staff advised us that we should include it in the SUD as well, so that explains that kind of modification that we made. Modifications to the transportation plan of the development agreement described in board file number 260724, the DA amendment ordinance to remove some redundant language regarding a mitigation measure, clarify that the Muni bus shelter on block 12 must be consistent with standards included in the D4D, clarify previously some unclear statement that the developer must seek the cooperation of both MTA and Public Works for subsequent approvals, and create a process for MTA to review and comment on the design of block 12 Muni bus shelter and employee restroom. And then finally, modifications to the TDM plan to tie implementation of the shuttle bus service to issuance of first certificate of occupancy of the second to last building constructed in phase one or two, and allow the developer and city to coordinate on potential alternatives at that time. And then modifications to the process for calculating and reporting vehicle trips to conform to mitigation measure MTR 5. As I noted in the memo, these modifications require a little bit of housekeeping from you. That's why I sort of restated them in full here. Should you wish to move forward with this project and recommend approval of the DA and SUD today, the maker of a motion to recommend approval would have to verbally include these changes in their motion. Obviously, this is a little bit technical, so I'm very happy to come back up to the podium and assist you with that at that time if needed. Since your packets were published, the department has received one inquiry from a member of the public who asked how parking might be impacted in the immediate area and who ultimately expressed support of the project when told that off-street parking limits would actually increase. Otherwise, the department has received 11 letters of support from members of the community and individuals representing organizations such as the Dogpatch Arts and Business Association, Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association, Dogpatch and Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District, the YMCA of Greater San Francisco, and the Homeless Prenatal Program. We have not received any public opposition. Based on the findings included in the case report, the department is recommending approval of the proposed DA, D4D, and SUD amendments before you. The project sponsor team has been pursuing development of the project very diligently since 2020, submitting applications for six of the 12 development blocks and two open spaces, all within the confines of a set of regulations that were approved just a couple months before the pandemic began, as John noted. The amendments before you are intended to provide more development flexibility in a challenging economic environment post-pandemic based on lessons learned and align some of Power Station's building standards with broader planning code and procedural changes which have reduced development constraints and streamlined processes across the city over the last few years. Importantly, these modifications still preserve the public benefits and development plan that the city and sponsor negotiated six years ago, which John also described. But I think it's important to restate a 30% inclusionary affordable housing rate, at least 2,600 total residential units, and spaces offered to the San Francisco Public Library, YMCA, new grocery store tenant, and La Cocina. I do want to say, even though I'm the person speaking to you today, we've been working on this as a team for quite some time. It's been a hugely, hugely collective effort. So I do just want to take a moment to uplift some of the city staff who also worked on this. John, of course, Matt Snyder, Maggie Lausch, who are here with me today, Josh Pollack, and Joy Navarrete at planning. And they kind of form the core team, as well as Josh Switzke, Sherry George, and Chelsea Fordham. And I also want to thank Audrey Pearson and Heidi Goertz in the city attorney's office. Of course, I want to thank the project sponsor team for being so collaborative as we work through all of these amendments. So this concludes the staff presentation, and we're happy, obviously, to answer any questions that you have during your deliberation. And now I'll turn it over to the fifth space team. Thank you. Thank you.

Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, it's very nice to be here today to talk about acceleration and not revocation. I want to say it's been a very challenging last five years, but it absolutely thrills me to be back here in front of you talking about accelerating this project and share with you some of the progress we've made. As you know, we're a little project out on the southeast portion of the city power station. We're 29 acres on a piece of land that is correct. It has not been open to the public for over 150 years. This is what this site was like about 150 years ago, where it powered the growth of our city for numerous amounts of industry, everything from sugar to barrels to later power. And that's what the site looked like in the 1920s. When we came to the site in 2016, it looked much like this after a community process that came that said, do we really need another power plant in the city? Is there not a better use for this land? And so for us, it's been an honor and a privilege to imagine that next use with the city, with the community, with members of the public, and now with our friends in labor to be building it. So the project itself, as you got an overview, is quite large, 2,600 homes, 30% of which we are proud to be affordable. And note that we have not sought any reduction in our affordability target. Affordable housing is the defining issue of our times. And if we're not working hard to do this, we're wasting our time. And so that's kind of where this all started. Everything that flows from here is just a matter of how do we make this project go faster. And so along with our community partners, we have been working on ways to keep all of the community benefits that came along with this project, significant investments in infrastructure, significant investments in community benefits, transportation, and obviously housing. The work we did over the past couple of years was not the most glamorous, removing about 100 years of old infrastructure, building streets, building a seawall, turning and supporting historic structures, which are a core value to our team. And now, when you came to the site, you would see this. 100 homes for new San Franciscans, construction underway, streets, roads, and very soon an open waterfront. So the site itself has really been transformed. And today, if you came, you would see about 150 people working on the site, building, and starting with cranes. So it's been a wonderful experience for us. So what we've got today is, as mentioned, our first building, 105 units of workforce housing financed innovatively in a way that had not been done before. Glorious to know that about 100 San Franciscans now live there, of AMIs between 50 and 110. And we look forward to building much more of this. That's something else that's come up, is a cancer center for University of California, which we broke ground on last year, one of the most innovative cancer centers on the planet, under construction now, opening in 2029. And so we're very excited that it is pouring and moving along, and it's changing. So we frankly wouldn't be here without everyone here, as Monica mentioned. It's taken a collective effort of the city, the planning department, the community, the team, to really get us here. What we're looking at now is how do we go faster? I think the thing that's about to happen in our city is we're going to get a wave of investment and growth that's coming. I think you guys are going to be very, very busy in the near future. And so we're getting ready for it. So what do the changes mean? At Power Station, they're largely around practicality. We like our document. As they mentioned, our DA worked relatively well. What we've done six years in is looking for ways to make the site and other things go faster. So we've made slight modifications to our phasing plan to make it go quicker. Minor land use changes to make more flexible uses of two parcels that have unique attributes that make them go faster if they have some flexibility. Some potential small increases to the street wall to make the buildings a little more useful to the market. Slight increases in height. uh that you can see here everything in purple is a small changes we're not changing things big they really are just minor corrections and then some sites of what it would look like if we take a historic building and have minor height adjustments so for us it really has been about making this practical updating parking rules is really about making them more useful to allow parking to better use for public parks potentially a grocery store the practical uses that we didn't think about in 2019 we want to implement today Minor changes to affordable housing, nothing changing in the top line level, but really looking at making more implementable. And then obviously acceleration of community benefits. Everything else, and I'll close with quickly, we are working incredibly hard now to work to open a waterfront that has been closed since Abraham Lincoln was president. And our next project is turning our old power station into an interim park to activate this portion of the waterfront. Thank you for your consideration and all your support over the years. And we'll take any of your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter. You need to come forward.

Hello, everybody.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Manuel Rodriguez. I'm a 30-year San Francisco resident, a public school parent, president of the Juvenile Probation Commission, and I am the associate vice president of government affairs at the YMCA of Greater San Francisco. So I'm here today in support of the proposed amendment in front of you. And I'm speaking on behalf of the YMCA of Greater San Francisco to support the amendments to the development agreement, the special use district, and the design for development now before you all. So the YMCA is a proud partner of the Power Station team on projects that serve the surrounding community, including our work together that led to the opening of our new dog patch YMCA in the Crane Cove Park, which has activated the area and engaged local residents. So the proposed amendment allowing greater flexibility in the placement of child care facilities and community facility space is an important and thoughtful improvement. As an operator of childcare and community programs, the YMCA understands that flexibility is required to create successful, engaging community spaces. Rigid block requirements, while well-intended, can make it more difficult and run the risk for our team to deliver on said project. So the YMCA sees this amendment as preserving the commitment to child care and community facilities while also creating a more realistic path to bringing these spaces to life. So again, we value our partnership with the Power Station team and look forward to future opportunities with all city stakeholders to bring YMCA programs and services to the community as it develops and matures. So I respectfully ask the commission to approve the proposed amendments.

Thank you.

OK. My name is Jessica Pesco. First of all, it was very hard for me to find this on our city website. If we could please make it more accessible so that we can actually find the information. on here, I had to call 311. And they had to actually give me the information to a link to this meeting. Also, if we can talk about the community benefits portion, that would be amazing. Because we're going to have a forum tonight. And that's one of the sections that's supposed to be about. And I don't know how the candidates are supposed to be able to talk about this topic when we just glossed through that whole section. And I said, wait. So I'm not really sure. Also, we have a lot of affordable housing right now. We have vacant homes. What I did was I sent a letter to the mayor's office asking if we can actually have landlords post some of their vacancies available. that are available on sfgov so that way we can figure out what units are available, how many units are available, the pricing of the units. And we can ban these algorithms from jacking up the prices because that's a part of the reason why our rent is unaffordable here in the Bay Area. In New York, you have to live in a place for 180 days. We may want to consider that, not doing short-term rentals, because we want people to stay here for a long time. We want people to have families here. We know there's communities here. And we don't want to keep pushing people out. There's a lot of people who are really struggling to afford $4,000 a month for a median price of an apartment. And we're at a really challenging time. We're facing a housing crisis, a health care crisis, and we just got our Medicaid stuff cut from the administration for waste and abuse. We've got to be transparent.

Thank you. Last call for public comment. Seeing none, public comment is closed. And this matter is now before you, commissioners. And you don't need to read actual that language again into the record. You can just state, as read into the record by staff, in case anyone needs to make. As read in the record by staff. In case you want to make a motion, yeah.

Thank you. Commissioner McGarry.

So I'm a really big fan of this project. Basically, the city, we find ourselves in a pickle, everything from Prop M in the 80s to restrict to C to E. Basically, everything is restrictions. Then we find ourselves in what I call a savage recession, construction recession for the last five, six years. We're trying to reinvent ourselves downtown. I've been on panels. I've sat on panels, moderated panels. The only example of office to residential that has succeeded is 100 Van Ness. Everything else is wishful thinking. And it can only ever, any of it can only ever succeed if it's done nothing individually, but cohesively. It'll all work. I want to commend the planning department, because basically that's what we're doing. If you go 1 through 12 here, it's all working together cohesively to make this work. This one here, 10, what you're doing down there is absolutely phenomenal. The vision of it early on is phenomenal. We've got the old. We've got basically the new. We're reinventing the old. And then we've got basically envisioning the future. And that's pretty much what you're doing there on a former power plant that basically was just walled off for 100 years. There was nothing going on around it, and there was nothing to see in it. But what it's going to be transferred to in the years to come is just absolutely amazing. An example of YMCA there on Crane Cove, it's just beautiful now. We've got a beach, literally, in the dog patch. Who would have thought 10 years ago that there would be a beach in the dog patch? I'm a massive fan. I'm going to remain a massive fan of this. I'm going to jump out, and I'm going to make a motion to approve with all modifications that are required for it. I second it. I'm excited to hear what my fellow commissioners have to say.

I second it. Commissioner So.

So this is a project that I've been seeing for these past years, and even back then when I was a Historic Preservation Commissioner. And I have to say, I'm absolutely delighted to speak in strong support for this 29 acres, just 29 acres of proposal today. Pretty tiny for San Francisco, isn't it? Hearing your project sponsor's clear commitment to an accelerated phasing plan is music to my ears. Quite frankly, in San Francisco, we need to hear more of this proactive, forward-thinking momentum, forward-moving momentum. So what impresses me most is that how a project of this scale creates a truly unique ecosystem. It delivers a conscientious mix of building types, flexible uses, and deep public-private partnership that set a new benchmark for urban planning in our city. I particularly applaud your unwavering commitment to 30% affordable housing by utilizing a thoughtful AMI flexibility, this project directly targets the housing needs for our missing middle, ensuring our local workforce can actually afford to live in the city they serve. The community benefit package is not short of amazing that you have. We're opening up a historic waterfront that hasn't been accessible to the public since Abraham Lincoln was the president. Am I right? So beyond new open space and infrastructure, this project advances life science, biotechnology, and emerging technology, ensuring San Francisco remains a world-class hub where innovation can thrive. Partnering with UCSF for their new facility is an incredible win for healthcare and cancer research in our community. Furthermore, I appreciate that the design looks to the future by proactively addressing the sea level rising and shoreline resiliency that we have to face, while simultaneously acting as a trailblazer in historic adaptive reuse for such iconic structures like Station A and the stack. I look forward to that fancy artwork park that you're going to get there. So this project embodies vision, partnership, and urgency San Francisco needs right now. You have my enthusiastic full support, and I wish you Godspeed in getting the next handful of buildings to break ground. So thank you for doing this for San Francisco.

Thank you, Commissioner So. Commissioner Koppel.

I don't think you can really appreciate the magnitude of this project until you've gone down and visited the site. Privileged to be a part of this since its inception, all the way through all of the processes. I don't know how many years ago you took me on a tour, and we were on what floor of that building looking over the site before anything had ever happened. So it's surreal being here today, first hearing back. you're in front of us for what is it's almost an indescribable project. What isn't happening here on the coastline? I mean, what projects have just even this much infrastructure, just street work, you know, within the project? So, yeah, 29 acres. Not only is this project been putting unlimited amounts of construction workers to work for temporary jobs. What I'm learning most now about working for the business side of my industry is the word risk. And I applaud you for taking a risk on this project. This was not a simple project. This is not just one building. This is, I don't know, if there's a more complex project in the city. So hats off to you for being so transparent all the way through, too. couldn't be in more support of all the amendments and wish you well.

Thank you. Commissioner McDonald.

Hi. So I would just like to say that I agree with all of the comments that my fellow commissioners have said. I'm in huge support of this project. There's so many good things about it. I won't reiterate everything that everybody's already said, but it's also true. And I have a maybe a special interest in this project. Because way back when, some years before, I worked with my students. We did a planning and design project for this part of the city and got to know it well and work with some folks at the city at that time. And I really enjoy seeing what is in the plan that was developed and how you're respecting that and continuing to reinforce it. Particularly, I'll mention the public realm that's being created, which is wonderful. Not only the waterfront edge, which will be available to everybody, but the other parks and open spaces that are integrated into the waterfront. And I think it's going to be a fantastic part of the city. And so good luck with everything that you're doing and all the hard work that you're putting into it. Thank you.

I mean, this is just going to be a pile on here, but you've come all the way here, so I'm just going to take the opportunity. I completely agree. Going down to the site, I had the privilege of going down for the ULI in the fall, and it is mind-blowing. I encourage the public to go and see. It just gives you a sense of scale and the undertaking of what they're actually doing there. I would call this like a generational project, right? And it's taken a huge team and a huge collaboration, and Hats off to all of you for your endurance. It is a turbulent landscape out there and your perseverance is like so commendable. And the fact that you're committing to these affordable housing requirements that are above and beyond what you would have to do if you, you know, how we've changed those requirements. So hats off for that as well. I think the flexibility doesn't mean you're making fewer commitments, right? It's just we're creating the right conditions for you to deliver. And I hope we can B, we can draw from this for the future and try to build in more flexibility. Because I mean, this is a once in a lifetime type of project. But I think that in this turbulent environment, that's kind of the new norm. I think it's going to be harder and harder to predict what the market will hold. I mean, look, we're seeing it in the environment, the fires that are going on, geopolitical. I think it's just the new normal is unpredictability. So I think the more we can be flexible on our side, the more we set you all up for success. While we're all here, I do think it would maybe be helpful for the community to hear how are there amendments happening to community benefits? so that they can have peace of mind around that. And then you glossed quickly through some of these diagrams in your deck. It started with talking about accelerating development. And then the slides, because we only gave you five minutes, you went through them very quickly. And I just wonder, for the benefit of the public, if you could just maybe go through the phasing, land use flexibility, street wall adjustments, The height adjustments and urban design considerations are so minor, those changes, contextually. But I just feel like maybe for the public, maybe we could just walk through those to give them some assurances of the changes. Thank you, Commissioner Campbell.

And 100% transparency is something that we have always believed in. We did a robust outreach process for this project. For this amendment, I think we had four community meetings, individual one-on-one meetings. Information is always posted on our website about all of our community benefits and everything else we've done. I think we met some 87,000 people during the outreach process when the project was getting entitled. And I'm very proud that the project has had 46 consecutive approvals for the project. So it's been something that we've certainly been very public. As you note, it's quite difficult to explain a 5 million square foot 30-year project in five minutes. So you do get the greatest hits version. I'll go through every one of the small changes you said. On the phasing issue, it's very simple. It's bringing forward a parcel that's under our control to make it go quicker, while not waiting for a parcel that's under PG&E's control that may take longer. I think that waiting on PG&E sometimes takes longer than you expect. So we'd rather just move that along and potentially deliver more of the project faster. On the questions of street wall, some of our projects needed slightly higher street wall before it went to a setback to make them a little more practical to implement, made it slightly easier. And so that was the change that occurred there, especially for the smaller floor plate commercial buildings, of which we have two. that made it easier for us to potentially implement them. The additional height came for the same reasons. I will note that they came for the two smaller commercial parcels, and so one went up, I think, 15 feet, the other 18, the relatively modest, and the other one was for a historic building. We showed all of the height increases in the commission packet, and I think the point is that there's nothing glaring that came out. As far as flexibility to community benefits, there is not a reduction in mass of the community benefits at all. If anything, we've affirmed them and looked to deliver them faster, more flexibly, and in a way that was easier to implement. The YMCA, I'll give one as an example. Child care, our development agreement was very prescriptive and said that there was a minimum of 6,000 square feet of child care. You go and speak to community organizations and child care providers like the YMCA, and they say, hey, our sweet spot's 4,000. And so you want to be able to deliver. So instead of having two 6,000 square foot child care facilities, we'll have three. And so it's something like that. The one reduction in change that we did make is that we had a very noble goal to try to put a soccer field on top of a parking garage. Turns out you can't insure that. So despite us trying, it was something that we could not do, and nor could we find someone to operate it. And so when the YMCA that has a 154-year history of operating community facilities says, maybe save that for something else, we pivoted and looked for ways to do a basketball court instead. Overall, the community benefits, I cannot think of another net reduction of community benefits. If anything, it's about increasing them, going faster, and delivering them more flexibly in ways that make them work. A thriving project like this, to get a thriving project, community facilities are a core part of the strategy. You're not going to get a wonderful place if you don't have a Y if you don't have childcare, if you don't have a library, if you don't have parks. The public realm is a feature. That's why we're going at it first. So the goal of this is that it gets a little of everything over time. And all we're doing is to try to be able to grab the most readily available urban placemaking experience or ingredient that we can find and implement it faster. So that's the project.

Thank you for the added detail. I don't see any other requests to speak. And we have a motion that's been seconded.

Indeed. Commissioners, sorry, public comment is closed, ma'am. We have a motion that has been seconded to adopt a recommendation for approval for the amendments to the development agreement, adopt a recommendation of approval for the planning code and zoning map amendments, as well as approving the design for development document. with the modifications read into the record by staff. On that motion, Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner So? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, Commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6 to 0. Commissioners, that will place us on item 11 for case number 2026-006144CWP for the Development Impact Fee Report, fiscal years ending 2025. This is for your consideration of adoption.

Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Matt Snyder of department staff. BEFORE YOU THIS AFTERNOON IS A CITY IMPACT FEE REPORT ENDING IN FISCAL YEAR 2025 PREPARED BY THE CONTROLLER'S OFFICE THAT HAS BEEN PREPARED PURSUANT TO THE CALIFORNIA MITIGATION FEE ACT. TO GIVE YOU SOME BACKGROUND ON THE REPORT, WE'RE GOING TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A PRESENTATION ON IMPACT FEES IN SAN FRANCISCO IN GENERAL, THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MITIGATION FEE ACT, THEIR HISTORY IN SAN FRANCISCO, and the planning department's role in establishing and implementing the impact fees. We're going to provide you some examples from area plans and touch upon some current trends. And we're going to conclude by asking you to adopt a resolution, accepting the report, and confirming the report's findings and conclusions. So San Francisco currently administers about 38 development impact fees, many of which are governed by the California Mitigation Fee Act. The Act requires that fees be related and proportional to the development projects paying them. This is also generally referred to as nexus requirements. We are required to do analysis when we establish these fees, nexus reports, and to update them on a regular basis, which we've done most recently in 2021. The Fee Act also requires regular accounting for these fees, which the city meets through a wide variety of reports by different agencies, including the biannual 10-year capital planning process, the annual IPRC report, which we provide to you every year, and the report before you this afternoon. Specifically, this report for each fee, this report provides a description of that fee, its fee rate, and for the reporting period, revenue earned, expenditures spent, and the fee fund balances. In addition, the report identifies projects for which fees were expended, the total budget of those projects as a percentage of the fees, any shortfalls and estimates construction start dates for projects that have not yet been started. This is a quick history and background. San Francisco's first impact fees date back to the downtown plan in the mid-1980s, which saw the creation of new fees to address the needs for transit, child care, and housing directly related to the office and downtown development that that plan was directing. During the 1990s, the Planning Commission adopted inclusionary housing requirements that were tied to housing projects that were before the commission. This was ultimately, of course, memorialized as a part of the Planning Code in Section 415 and expanded over time to be a part of the city's affordable housing program. As the department also in the 2000s, as the department embarked on the creation of many area plans, impact fees became a key strategic component to those efforts, enabling the plans to take a holistic approach and planning in both the needed community infrastructure and benefits that were tied to the new growth. Impact fees today can generally be described in three groups. We have citywide fees. These are generally subject projects across the city per some parameters, and they're focused on a single improvement type. And then we have the geographically based fees. These are coming out of the area plans. They are geographically specific to the area plan boundaries. They're usually a single fee that can go to many types of improvements. and fees that are options demeaning certain regulatory requirements, often referred to as in lieu fees, such as those tied to affordable housing. As impact fees are tied to land use changes and are in the planning code, planning department plays an absolute key role in establishing and implementing the fees. And in terms of establishment for all fees, our staff is involved in needs assessment, nexus studies, feasibility studies, capital plans that are for the decision makers in creating the plans. For the area plans, our role has been more intricate. Establishing fees have been an integral part in creating area plan fees, enabling the creation of holistic plans that looked at infrastructure planning as well as land use changes. After fees are established, we are also key to the administration. The current planning team assesses fees as a part of permit approval process and for the citywide fees, programming fees. And after the fees are received and then comes the programming for the citywide fees that are specific to improvement types, those are generally left to the respective agencies. However, for the area plan fees, planning plays a much key role in lining up projects for funding through the Interagency Plan Implementation Committee. In terms of reporting and monitoring, our staff, along with IPIC, produces the annual IPIC report. We also cooperate with other agencies, such as Capital Planning, and the Controller's Office with other reports, such as the one before you today. So as we report every year, impact fees play a lot of different roles in terms of funding. For the next couple of slides, I'm going to focus in on the area plan fees, since those are the ones that we're most familiar and most involved in. This slide shows a few examples of the different ways these fees have been used over the years. Sometimes they're provided for foundational funding as an initial project coming out of the conclusion of every planning process. A good example is Chanca Hall Park and the mission, where impact fees paid about half of the new park and helped turn the community's vision into reality. Other times they serve as last dollars in, providing the final piece of funding needed to move a project forward. The Polk Street bike lane, just very close to the City Hall and Market Octavia plan area is a good example of that. In other cases, the contribution has been relatively small, but still made a real difference. One example is providing staff funding for the SOMA Public Works Bureau of Urban Forestry Nursery at Fifth and the 80 Freeway. And on the other end of the spectrum, impact fees have also been a major funding partners on large capital projects, such as in Margaret Hayward Playground, a complete rehabilitation of that park, and Market Octavia. Some projects come directly from community priorities, such as the Potrero Gateway. This was completed about a couple of years ago. And finally, not every improvement is not implemented as a city project. Sometimes they are delivered as in-kind of improvements where a developer builds the project directly. Daggett Park and Showplace is a good example. It benefits the adjacent development, but also creates a lasting amenity for the entire neighborhood. So where we often think of impact fees as simply a funding source, they can actually be quite a flexible tool, helping launch projects, closing funding gaps, supporting partner agencies, funding major capital improvements, and limiting community priorities, and delivering new public spaces through development itself. And just very quickly, just to name about five projects that were completed in the last couple of years within this five-year reporting period. It includes transit improvements like the 16th Street, 22 Fillmore, which was focused on getting bikes through this corridor faster, but also include pedestrian improvements. Parks like Esprit Park that was also completed in the last year. in Dogpatch, had major recreational investments like Gene Friend, also a project where they built the project, or Reckon Park built the facility from ground up. Neighborhood improvements like Petrero Gateway that I just mentioned, and pedestrian improvement projects along Upper Market Street, also in Market Octavia plan area. So just in terms of trends of impact fee revenue, it's no surprise that we have seen a dramatic downturn in revenue over the last six years to five years, given the lack of construction activity. The graph before you actually shows four area plan fees. And to spur development, the city has been looking to reduce costs to developers, including reducing impact fees. Impact fees were first reduced by 33% about three years ago, and now is on track to be reduced to 67%, again, to help spur development. Recent local and state legislation also requires that impact fees, or at least most of them, not be collected until the conclusion of construction, rather at the beginning. This will further reduce our revenue from impact fees, at least in the immediate future. So just to bring it back around again to the report before you, the city has produced the impact fee report ending in fiscal year 2025 that satisfies the reporting requirements of the Mitigation Fee Act. This report provides updates on all of the 38 impact fees. It lists the development projects that have paid the fees during the reporting period, lists the expenditures, and provides updates on all those projects receiving funds from those fees. And just before we conclude, I just wanted to read into the record a typo in the reports, in the five-year report regarding the transportation sustainability fee. On page 61 of the report, it indicates a total expenditure of $94,541,331, which should be corrected to read $86,749,216. That was reported correctly in one of the other tables. So commissioners, we are recommending that you adopt the draft resolution before you, and on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco, accept the report, adopt the findings consistent with the Mitigation Fee Act, and certify its compliance. This report is thorough, accurate, and meets all of the Mitigation Fee Act requirements. This concludes my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Schneider. With that, we should open up public comment. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this item. Last call. Seeing none, public comment is closed. This matter is now before you, commissioners.

Commissioner McDonald.

Hi, so thank you for that presentation. And development impact fees really contribute so much to creating whole neighborhoods in this city, affordable housing, the public realm amenities, community open spaces, and the like. So I really commend the staff on the great work that was done to prepare this comprehensive financial report. on what has been collected and how it's been utilized to meet community goals. And I really liked what you did in the presentation here today, where you shared some of the images of what's actually been done. Because this is the heart of the matter. This is what makes it worthwhile doing it. And it's so important to keep that information alive and connect it to things. So it had just occurred to me when I was reading the report that we saw in the packet, which didn't contain any of these graphics, that there would be an opportunity going forward with future reports like this, or maybe just link documents to it to include more that really celebrates the achievements. Pictures like these of things that have been completed or underway or envisioned, and perhaps small narratives of it, because that keeps what we're trying to do at the heart of it. And when these reports are available for the public, it'll be connected to it. So maybe there's a chance to do that and celebrate more going forward. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. And just to let you know, so we do publish another report that does have more graphics. We also, on our web page, do have a story map that lists all the projects at least the area plans have done with descriptions and pictures and maps and so forth.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. Commissioner Koppel.

Great work, Mr. Schneider. I move to accept the report and adopt the findings.

I second it.

Seeing no further deliberation, commissioners, there is a motion that has been seconded to accept the report and adopt the findings on that motion. Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner So?

Aye.

And Commissioner President Campbell?

Aye.

So moved, commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0, placing us under your discretionary review calendar. For the final item on your agenda today, number 12, case number 2025, hyphen 011738DRP at 646 Duncan Street. This is a discretionary review. We'll hear from staff first.

Sure.

Excuse me.

Good afternoon, commissioners, Trent Green and staff architect. The item before you is a public initiated request for discretionary review, planning application 2025-011738-PRJ to construct interior renovations on the first floor, horizontal addition and interior renovations on the second floor with a rear deck and a third floor vertical addition. The existing building is a category A property, which means it's a historic resource built in 1941. The site is approximately 30 feet wide in front, 15 feet wide in rear, and 89 feet deep. The DR requester, Ann Malsun, at 652 Duncan Street, the neighbor to the immediate west, claims that the proposed third floor addition is configured in a manner that creates unreasonable impacts on their property relating to light, air, and excessive rearward massing adjacent to the neighboring homes. They claim that the city's preservation review that required the addition to be set back substantially from the street concentrates third floor massing towards the rear of the adjacent properties, including their home, where it creates significant direct impacts on neighboring habitable rooms. Their proposed alternatives are to relocate a greater portion of the third floor massing toward the front of the property, reducing the extent of the rearboard floor massing adjacent to neighboring bedroom windows and living spaces and additional upper floor setbacks or massing reductions near the shared property line. To date, the department has received no letters in opposition and no letters in support of the project. The staff recommendation. This project is compliant with the planning code, specifically with respect to height and building depth and meets the RDGs. The project complies with the residential design guideline, articulate the building to minimize impacts to light and air. The proposed addition is consistent with the general depth of houses on the street and maintains a strong mid-block open space pattern. During the department's review, the property was determined to be an A, historic resource, which required a further setback from the street due to the high visibility of the lot. As a result, more of the massing was placed towards the rear of the property. Despite this, the combination of the DR applicant's upper story additions substantial setback from the side and the sponsor's willingness to provide a four-foot setback, substantial sun exposure is maintained to the applicant's eastern-facing facade. Therefore, staff deems there are no exceptional or extraordinary circumstances and recommends not taking discretionary review and approving. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we should open up public comment. Excuse me. We should hear from the discretionary review requester.

You have five minutes. Thank you, and hello, everyone. I'm here representing Anmao Sun today. I'm a good friend of his and also a business partner. We own and operate some restaurants here in San Francisco. I know he wanted to, or he tried in earnest to get this date moved, was not successful in doing so. He's unfortunately out of the country dealing with a family matter, so asked me to come by today. Obviously, the details were just shared with you, so I'll just be pretty brief here. And I'd like to emphasize on behalf of Anmao that he's not at all in opposition to this addition outright. It's just for the reasons that were shared a moment ago, meaning the specific configuration of the third floor specifically is creating an adverse impact on the habitability of their main room on his third floor. And then furthermore, there was an earlier version that was proposed and I understand ultimately rejected by the planning department that seems to be more of a win-win situation where more of that third floor addition was situated towards the front and I believe a bit higher as well. Am I allowed to use this right here? Yes. I have an image that might be helpful. Please. Yes. Thank you. So yeah, specifically, as you can see here, this is the front of that third floor addition. And then this is really the area in question here. And so this was ultimately rejected. And the request was for this to be shifted backwards. And that basically, in order to maintain the desired square footage of that addition, causes encroachment here. So this wall that I'm tracing here shifts over to the left. and basically brings that wall very close to the resident, to his residence. So the specific ask here is for an allowance or at least a reconsideration of allowing some of that massing to be shifted forward so that this space can be maintained. The one represented here is what's desired. It's a seven and a half foot space I believe. So that's it. I'm just looking for some reconsideration here. Ultimately, it seems like if this can be achieved, it is a win-win situation. Anma would also like to emphasize he understands the importance of this being deemed a historical building and everything that comes along with that, but would like to make the request anyway. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

Good afternoon commissioners. I'm Simon Yip on behalf of the project sponsor. 646 Duncan Street is a single-family home sitting on a triangular shaped lot located on the south corner of Duncan Street and Newburgh Street. The project site is within the RH1 zone districts and the 44R4 height and bulk districts. During the planning review process, the historical resource review was completed and the project site was deemed as a historical resource. During the standard pre-application meeting, the DR applicant requested we provide as much side setback as possible. and as a direct result of this request my client revised the plans to voluntarily provide a substantial seven foot six side setback the revised plans were formally submitted to planning but rejected due to the new historical determination of the property as directed by planning and preservation staff we were instructed to specifically reduce the height of the proposed third floor addition and start the proposed front building wall 15 feet from the existing insect front building wall in order to reduce visibility. Despite the greatly reduced buildable area, my client proposed a reasonable and modest vertical addition whilst proactively providing a voluntary four-foot side setback. Despite the goodwill shown by my client, a DR was filed. Mrs. Greening kindly organized a mediation meeting between the DR applicant and I, but the DR applicant was not open to any middle ground with the proposed project. So the core of the DR applicant's concerns come down to one item, the proximity of the proposed vertical addition to the shared property line. Originally the DR applicant was happy to proceed with the seven foot six size setback and overall larger addition but is currently objecting to a four foot size setback and a smaller addition. While we appreciate the thoughts from the dear applicant on how we could possibly proceed, the facts of this project are clear. Planning and preservation will not allow any proposed addition to move further forward than currently proposed. Planning do not require us to provide a side setback and actually supports infilling the voluntary proposed four foot side setback to reclaim the floor area lost through additional front setbacks as it still complies with design guidelines. As we have demonstrated that we have been more than responsive to the DR applicant's concerns but moving the addition further than currently proposed is something that we do not have control over and we do not want to do. My client is seeking closure and I'm going to go for the overhead. I've taken liberty of highlighting the applicant's house in blue, his third floor addition in red, and there is a restructure in orange. My client's house is highlighted in green to the right. This was the proposed third floor plan as discussed at the pre-application meeting. For context, I've added out the outline of the requested 7'6'' setback. This is the revised proposed third floor plan with the seven foot six setback that was submitted to planning and rejected. So as you'll see, we gave the seven foot six setback. And for context, this is the existing and proposed site plan as currently proposed. This is the current proposed plan supported by planning and my client and I've added the 746 sub-office context. The horizontal red line is the location of the original proposed front building wall before this project site was deemed historical and the horizontal green line is the location of the current proposed front building wall. So my client has spent a significant amount of time on money on two further redesigns since the pre-application. And my client wishes to proceed as proposed and does not wish to entertain pushing the addition toward the front of the building.

Thank you. Thank you. You'll have a two-minute rebuttal. Thank you. It will be coming up quickly. Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission. Last call. Seeing none, public comment is closed. DR requester, you have a two-minute rebuttal if you'd like. No? Project sponsor, you have a two-minute rebuttal if you'd like. You can finish your statement. Okay. With that, commissioners, the public hearing portion of this is closed, and the discretionary review is now before you.

I'll go. Thank you for the presentations. Our assignment here at the Commission for DRs is to find exceptional and extraordinary circumstances with your case. It's clear this project has been through a lot of hurdles. I think discovering you have a Cat A historic building in a project process is a lot, and there's been a lot of I don't know, contortionist moves that you've had to make to get to where we are now, some of which were voluntary, which I commend the project sponsor for. I find this addition to be very modest in nature. I think the impact from the expansion is very reasonable. It's a completely code-compliant project, and it does meet our residential design guidelines. And I do agree with the assessment that it's minimizing impact to light and air in the design. So I'm not seeing extraordinary and exceptional circumstances. So I would recommend we take the DR and approve, but I can't make a motion. And I see Commissioner McGarry would like to speak.

I can and I will make the motion. to approve and not take DR on this one. I find it weird just on the picture and on the plan view, the DR has taken total advantage of their property, more so than anyone else, right or left, and the same should be allowed for the applicant.

I second it.

Thank you. Quickly for staff, so let me just make sure I understand. So the project sponsor at 648 Duncan, they did not know that it was a Category A historic resource until they submitted their plans?

Correct. In the course of the review, they did an HRR, which is a historic resource review, which determined that it was, in fact, a resource.

Understood. And for my understanding, the requirement is by law or by guidance to reduce the height and to enforce the setback? Where does that come from?

Well, the historic review is to ensure that it doesn't impact the character-defining features of the resource. And because this site is such that it has high visibility, it's sort of at a curve in the street and with the topography, you know, a common recommendation by preservation staff would be to set back 15 feet. But because of its sort of unique condition, it would be very visible. So they asked for an additional setback because of that.

And that is required by CEQA? Is that required by city guidelines?

By preservation review, the city review, yeah. Once it becomes a resource, then preservation staff reviews it to determine whether the addition is having impacts on the character defining features of the building.

And the requirement that the city reduces the impacts to the character defining features, that is a... Is that a department process? Is that a requirement in city ordinance? I'm still trying to, I'm sorry, I'm new. I'm still trying to understand.

Yeah, it's a department requirement that it be done.

Okay. So I agree with the motion from Commissioner McGarry, I believe. I think Maybe this is a process question, but I do find it a bit regrettable that many project sponsors may not know the historic status of their property before they spend thousands of dollars and submit. Then they find out, oh, well, this new thing's happened. Now I've got to submit again. I'm very new, so I do not know, but this seems This does not seem to be very friendly for people who do want to raise kids or bring in their parents or change their family situation. And I know this is not within the scope of the DR, but it's like I think the DR applicant and the product sponsor would have been happier with a bigger addition that was further forward that had less impact on the neighbors. Maybe as a broader policy question, it's like, you know, who are we serving, right, with some of these requirements? And is that something that maybe something that we should, as a commission, look at in the future?

Thank you. Just to follow up, it's not a requirement that the sponsor have their project reclassified, right? They opted into that. A project, it was previously a B, which was age eligible, but hadn't been reclassified to a C or an A. So if they move forward as a B resource, they would basically have to treat it as if it were an A resource. Does that make sense? In order to not have to have it reclassified.

I suppose that makes sense by letter of the law, but in operation, I suppose it wouldn't change the decisions that they made, if that makes sense.

Commissioner Chen, maybe this will help you. When it's a B resource, it basically hasn't been evaluated. So there hasn't been a determination whether or not it is a resource or it's not. It is just simply age eligible, as Mr. Green indicated. So until the application comes in and until a historic resource evaluation has been submitted for staff to review and to make the analysis and to make a determination, it will remain a B. And to err on the side of caution, the department takes the policy of if you don't want to do that, then we're going to treat it as an A, historic resource. But they did, and so we now know it's an A. And so it's a bit of a onesie-twosie process as applications come in. We haven't done a sort of comprehensive historic resource analysis for every single property in San Francisco.

Yes, I understand that would be very expensive, very time consuming to try to analyze every single property. But I feel like the steps that we got here, it feels something could be better. But I will pause on that until a future policy discussion.

Thank you.

Commissioners, there is a motion that has been seconded to not take discretionary review and approve the project as proposed. On that motion, Commissioner Chen? Aye. Commissioner Koppel? Aye. Commissioner McDonald? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner So? Aye. And Commissioner President Campbell? Aye. So moved, Commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0.

And I believe that's a wrap.

Indeed. Thank you, Commissioners.

Congratulations.

TV.