This webinar is being transcribed and summarized.

Okay, good afternoon and welcome to the San Francisco Planning Commission hearing for

Thursday, November 20th, 2025. When we reach the item you're interested in speaking to,

we ask that you line up on the screen side of the room or to your right. Each speaker will be allowed

up to three minutes and when you have 30 seconds remaining you will hear a chime indicating your

time is almost up when your lot of time is reached i will announce that your time is up and take the

next person queued to speak there is a very convenient timer on the podium where you can

see how much time you have left and watch your time tick down please speak clearly and slowly

and if you care to state your name for the record i ask that we silence any mobile devices that may

sound off during these proceedings and finally i will remind members of the public that the

The commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind.

And at this time, I'd like to take roll.

Commission President Soh.

Present.

Commission Vice President Moore.

Here.

Commissioner Braun.

Here.

Commissioner Campbell.

Here.

Commissioner Imperial.

Here.

And Commissioner McGarry.

Here.

We expect Commissioner Williams to be absent today.

First on your agenda, commissioners, is consideration of items proposed for continuance.

Continuance item one case number 2025 hyphen zero zero seven eight seven nine see wait

690 vaness Avenue conditional use authorization

Is proposed for continuance to December 11th 2025 we have no other items proposed for continuance

So members of the public this is your opportunity to address the Commission on their continuance calendar only on the matter of

Continuance you need to come forward

Seeing none

Public comment is closed and your continuance calendar is now before you commissioners

Second thank you commissioners on that motion to continue item

One as proposed commissioner Campbell. I Commissioner McGarry

Commissioner Braun I machine Imperial I

Commissioner Moore

Commission President So?

Aye.

So move, commissioners.

That motion passes unanimously.

Six to zero.

Item two, land acknowledgement.

The commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramatush Ohlone,

who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.

As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions,

the Ramatush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place,

as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory.

As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland.

We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramatush Ohlone community

and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples.

Item 3, consideration of adoption draft minutes for November 6, 2025.

Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on their minutes.

Again, you need to come forward.

Seeing none, public comment is closed.

Your minutes are now before you, commissioners.

Commissioner Imperial.

Move to adopt the minutes.

Second.

Thank you, commissioners.

On that motion to adopt your minutes, commissioner Campbell.

Aye.

Commissioner McGarry.

Aye.

Commissioner Braun.

Aye.

Commissioner Imperial.

Aye.

Commissioner Moore.

Aye.

And commission president Soh.

Aye.

So move, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously, 6 to 0.

Item 4, commission comments and questions.

Okay, seeing none, we can move on to Department Matters, Item 5, Director's Announcements.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Great to see you again.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I do want to convey how grateful the department is for your service.

So another aspect of gratitude.

Thank you very much.

I'm supposed to speak louder.

Thank you, Catherine.

I will speak louder.

I don't have a whole lot of updates today. We did have last week and then again this week on Zoom, two sessions for the Fillmore Community Action Plan, which was a great opportunity and great dialogue with community, both in person and virtually.

And I think that was a great match of offering both options with kind of the same format.

But and we actually had some people attend both, which which allowed them to kind of evolve their thoughts from one session to the next.

So that was a that was a great session and really proud of staff for shepherding the whole city, including the mayor's office and supervisor Mahmoud's office through that process and series of workshops.

The family zoning plan continues to be discussed at the land use committee.

It was heard on Monday.

You'll hear a little bit about that.

But we are still on track to get to the full board in December.

So we look forward to that as amendments continue to be forwarded to that package.

And we continue to be in active conversation with the Department of Housing and Community Development at the state to make sure what we're doing meets state muster.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If there are no questions, we can move on to item 6, review of past events of the Board

of Supervisors, Board of Appeals and the Historic Preservation Commission.

Good afternoon, Commissioner Zarin Starr, Manager of Legislative Affairs.

This week the Land Use Committee started off by considering Supervisor Mandelman's ordinance

concerning the central neighborhood's large residential SUD.

This ordinance would expand the boundaries of this SUD.

As part of this change, it would eliminate the Corona Heights large residential SUD and

merge that area into the central neighborhood's SUD.

The expansion would also incorporate parcels that became part of District 8 during the

most recent redistricting process.

It also expands the controls to all parcels in the SUD, not just those zoned RH.

The SUD sets a maximum of 3,000 square feet on unit size, also known as monster homes.

Commissioners, you may not remember this ordinance, as you heard it back on August 1st of last year.

At that time, you recommended approval with two modifications.

The first was to not include accessory garage space in the calculations for gross floor area,

and the second was to specify that for the purposes of calculating gross floor area in multi-unit buildings, shared space shall not be included.

The delay in this coming to the Land Use Committee was due to the need to pair it with an upzoning,

because in some cases a limit on unit size can be considered a down zoning.

At the land use hearing, Supervisor Mandelman proposed amendments to the ordinance

to include both the commission's recommendations.

During the committee hearing, Supervisor Mandelman explained that his district

has seen a growing number of oversized single-family homes

on lots that could otherwise support smaller, more appropriately scaled units.

He emphasized that these large homes are typically unaffordable

and out of character for the surrounding neighborhood.

There were several members of the public who spoke in favor of the ordinance.

This amended item was then continued to the committee's next meeting of December 1st

so that it could be synced with the family zoning plan.

Next, the committee considered Supervisor Cheyenne Chen's Tenant Protection Ordinance.

This ordinance amends the planning and administrative codes to codify and expand the state's tenant protections

and housing replacement requirements that are established under SB 330.

By embedding these protections into local law, the ordinance reinforces the city's commitment to balancing housing production with long-term tenant stability.

Commissioners, you heard this item on November 6th of this year and adopted a recommendation for approval with modifications.

These modifications incorporated all the changes proposed by the department and both supervisors.

Key updates include revisions to the conditional use findings and thresholds, a new demolition definition,

enhanced disclosure requirements for buyout agreements and LS Act evictions, and an expansion

of the existing occupant definition to include tenants displaced through the LS Act evictions,

among other changes. The sponsor accepted all the proposed modifications except those regarding

changes to conditional use findings and thresholds and the updated demolition definition.

During the hearing, Supervisor Cheyenne Chen highlighted the collaborative process between

interested parties in developing the ordinance, emphasizing its significance in strengthening

tenant protections. Supervisor Melgar praised Supervisor Cheyenne Chen's work, describing the

ordinance as one of the largest and most impactful pieces of legislation she has seen in her decades

of engagement with affordable housing and tenant protection. Supervisor Mahmood also commented

Supervisor Cheyenne Chen and underscored the ordinance's importance within the broader

context of the family zoning plan. He expressed his full support and signed on as co-sponsor.

A total of 32 members of the public provided comments, with the vast majority expressing

strong support for the ordinance and the proposed modifications. Supporters specifically requested

amendments to the demolition definition and the conditional use authorization findings.

Two commenters opposed the ordinance, and one commenter expressed support but raised concern

about potential impacts on redevelopment of rent control housing.

After public comment, the committee continued the ordinance to December 1st.

Most amendments were adopted, while those related to the conditional use findings and thresholds,

as well as the demolition definition, were deferred to the next hearing for consideration after additional outreach.

Lastly, the committee considered for the third time the family zoning plan.

At the start of the hearing, staff provided the committee with a presentation that discussed the following.

First, the different capacity analyses done to assure compliance with state requirements to add capacity for 36,000 new units,

the relationship of the family zoning plan to SB 79,

and staff's approach to assessing how the various proposed amendments could impact the legislation's effectiveness.

Prior to public comment, Supervisor Mandelman introduced a new map and text amendments

that together would remove properties listed in Article 10,

both individually listed and contributors to historic districts, from the rezoning.

Specifically, such properties would be removed from the proposed new R4 height and bulk

and new RTOC underlying zoning designations.

The committee moved to incorporate these amendments into the original board file

for the rezoning map and planning code actions.

During public comment, there were approximately 66 speakers.

Comments varied greatly between being opposed to and supportive of the rezoning broadly

and the various amendments proposed.

At the end of public comment, the committee then acted on the various ordinances.

First was the general plan amendments, no specific discussion by supervisors,

and very little comment from the public regarding this matter.

The committee continued it to December 1st.

Next, the zoning map amendments.

The committee moved to incorporate into the original file several amendments,

including first, Mandelman's amendments that were just described,

an amendment to reduce the proposed heights and only allow form-based density

under the local program at various D2 locations.

This includes the Marina Safeway, the north side of Point Street between Hyde and Larkin,

and two sites on Geary.

Heights were also increased at two other locations, several blocks on the west side of Van Ness

and two blocks along Pine Street.

These were proposed by Supervisor Cheryl.

The map amendments that failed the committee's motion to be incorporated into the file include,

First, the amendment to remove parcels from the priority equity geographies from the rezoning.

This was proposed by Supervisor Cheyenne Chen.

And then amendments to remove many parcels within the coastal zone within D1 from the rezoning.

And this was proposed by Connie Chen.

Sorry, Supervisor Connie Chen.

And the third was an amendment to remove one D1 parcel from the SFMTA SUD, also proposed by Supervisor Connie Chen.

The MAP amendments were then continued to December 1st.

Next, the Planning Code text amendments.

The committee moved to incorporate the following amendments into the original file.

First, the amendment to reinstate underlying unit mix requirements for the local program

while retaining the proposed lower threshold for five units.

This was proposed by Supervisor Cheyenne Chen.

The text amendments that failed the committee's vote to be incorporated into the original file

include first an amendment to reintroduce pre-application requirements for developments

at SFMTA sites to evaluate the site's feasibility for 100% affordable housing.

This was proposed by Supervisor Cheyenne Chen.

And amendments to remove form-based density in the base zoning and revert to underlying

density controls in all districts.

This was proposed by Supervisor Connie Chen.

Then the original file was continued December 1st.

Then the committee moved to table most of the duplicated files, which after the land use motions contained those amendments that were not moved to the original file for later consideration.

One duplicated file will be under the review at the Planning Commission today, which is President Mandelman's lot merger restrictions.

Then at the full board, Supervisor Fielders' Medical Canada's dispensary ordinance, Supervisor

Dorsey's planning fees ordinance, the mayor's timeline for appeals for the zoning administrator,

the state-mandated accessory dwelling unit program, all passed their second read.

Then the San Francisco Gateway Special Use District, sponsored by Supervisor Walton,

passed its first read.

Next, this supervisor is considered Supervisor Connie Chan's ordinance that would require a CU to replace a legacy business.

Commissioners, you heard this item on October 16th and took the rare action of recommending disapproval of the proposed ordinance.

When the item was heard at the Land Use Committee, it was amended so that small businesses would be exempt from the CU.

Because this commission actively recommended disapproval of the ordinance, thereby finding it inconsistent with the general plan,

the board required eight votes to override that determination and adopt their own general plan findings.

During the hearing, supervisors Mahmood, Sader, and Cheryl all spoke against the item,

all citing the Small Business Commission and this commission's non-support of the item

and the need to make things easier, not harder, for new businesses.

When the vote came, it earned just six yes votes,

too short of the eight needed to override this commission's general plan determination.

The ordinance has failed and will not have a second read.

Lastly, the board heard the appeal for the final mitigated negative declaration for the proposed project at 570 Market Street.

The project would demolish two existing two-story commercial buildings to construct a 29-story, 300-foot hotel with approximately 211 guest rooms.

The planning commission heard the PM&D appeal on May 1st and rejected the appeal.

The appellants primarily raised issues related to geology and soils, construction noise and vibration, and historic preservation.

Appellants contended that the vibration mitigation measure was not feasible and that the city was deferring mitigation and study by not studying geotechnical impacts up front and relying on DBI process.

regarding construction noise the appellants argued that the adjacent

office building should be considered a sensitive receptor even though office

uses generally are not balance also initially raised issues regarding

construction air quality shadow wind and freight loading during the appeal there

are about four commenters in support of the project these commenters were

construction and trade union representatives there were no commenters

who supported the appeal.

There was no significant discussion from the board.

Supervisor Sauter was the only supervisor who spoke.

He echoed the department's position that the appellant have not provided substantial evidence

based on facts to support the need for an EIR,

and that the MND, as prepared, adequately analyzed the project.

He then made a motion to reject the appeal, which passed unanimously.

And after 18,028 words, I am done.

Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no questions for Mr. Starr, the Board of, there is no report

from the Board of Appeals but the Historic Preservation Commission did

meet yesterday and considered several legacy business registry applications

that included Glamorama on Valencia Street, Catherine Clark Gallery on Utah

Street, the Hair Place and More Barbershop on 22nd Street, the Sword and

Rose on Carl Street and Deitch's woodwind workshop on Clement Street. They also adopted

a recommendation for approval to expand the boundaries for the Castro LGBTQ cultural district.

If there are no questions, we can move on to general public comment. At this time, members

of the public may address the Commission on items of interest to the public that are within

the subject matter jurisdiction of the Commission accept agenda items. With respect to agenda items,

your opportunity to address the Commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting.

When the number of speakers exceed the 15-minute limit, general public comment may be moved to the

end of the agenda. Good afternoon, President Tso,

Commissioners, and Director Phillips. My name is Denise Louie. I'm a longtime advocate for fire

prevention and preparedness. Today I urge you to reject the proposed 104 foot tall AT&T antenna

at 350 amber because it is a fire hazard. In addition, it would be situated among 100 foot

tall dangerous eucalyptus which are known to ignite easily because of their volatile oils,

to burn hot, to explode, and because of their large leaves and peeling bark,

to send burning embers flying for miles.

What we really need instead is a redundant public alert system

like the one that was shut off due to the potential hacking.

Imagine the unavailability of cell phone service.

I request that you insist that staff study alternatives for backup communication systems.

Now, some people may want better wireless AT&T internet service.

I did, so I switched to Xfinity, and it's cable service.

So I'm saving $15 a month while I'm getting better internet service.

service. We don't need AT&T for that. I also urge you to plan for seismic upgrades to fire and

police stations. The two fire stations in Chinatown and in the mission that are meant to be command

posts in a disaster are seismically unsafe. As Chief Crispin himself said, we would first need

to rescue our first responders. So other fire and police stations also need retrofitting.

please take steps to keep our first responders safe thank you ma'am I didn't

want to interrupt you but just so you're aware the Planning Commission already

considered 350 Amber Street and approved that project in September just so you're

aware

Good afternoon, President Soh and members of the Planning Commission.

Kathleen Courtney, Russian Hill Community Association.

A decade ago, Supervisor Raphael Mandelman's godmother, Eleanor Burke, decided to do a walking

tour of San Francisco.

She's an artist and a writer.

The result was a 116-page book about the vitality and passion of San Francisco neighborhoods.

I thought about this book while watching the Land Use Committee.

There was a very professional, somewhat sterile presentation by the planning department

with emphasis on the computer program that calculates the density and capacity,

which resulted for us in the allowance of six-story buildings on our 30 alleys in my neighborhood.

But it noted that the sophisticated program, of course, couldn't calculate affordability,

which is one of the, after all, goal of this initiative.

But Supervisor Chen and Supervisor Chan did address affordability.

And I thought it was creative, and I thought they did it with passion.

But their proposals will not be passed on to the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Melger noted that she agreed philosophically with several of the concepts put forth,

but was very sorry that there was not enough time to work on them fuller.

And, yeah, it is very sad.

There is little institutional memory.

I look around.

There's very little institutional memory here.

But some of us remember what happened to the Fillmore, and some of us remember what happened to Japantown.

And we were aware of the devastation that this rush to judgment had in its significant ramifications.

But the implementation was short-term.

The proposed up-zoning, family zoning plan is going to be rolled out for decades.

Too bad there was not more time for the planning department to walk around and see the vitality and the excitement of the neighborhood.

To see why residents in the Pacific Avenue area spent five years with the planning department working out a district for Pacific Avenue.

you. It's too bad there's not more time, too bad to walk around the city and explore the

neighborhoods as Eleanor Burke did. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Hugh Hines. I'm a

resident of the Mission Bernal area, also an architect,

and professor at Architecture and Urbanism at CCA.

I'm coming to you today as a representative

of the board member of the Mission Bernal Merchants

Association.

We're aware that a lot of the focus

has been on the family zoning plan for obvious reasons,

and that the planning department, and presumably

the commission, is currently undertaking

an evaluation of the implications of SB 79,

which does impact our corridor.

We oversee Mission Street between Cesar Chavez and Cortland.

I just wanted to share some of the impacts of a kind of convergence of some recent redevelopment projects in our area,

which I would argue perhaps offers a preview of some of the impacts as SB 79 becomes implemented.

So right now, our Mission Bernal area has about 450 units of 100% affordable housing,

either recently completed or under construction.

which will mean an influx of up to 1,000 new residents in a 10-block area over a two-year period.

So this is great news, something we should clearly be proud of.

However, we're also experiencing growing pains of several years of major converging construction projects

concentrated in a small area, which I would say is perhaps akin to what we might see in a redevelopment project

where a redevelopment plan would presumably be accompanied by other mitigation measures,

services and infrastructure upgrades to accompany that and support that increase in population.

However, we're not seeing that currently since, as we're aware, there is no comprehensive

redevelopment plan currently in place. So some of those impacts include our merchant

members reporting a 30% drop in revenue year over year due to the deleterious effects of

ongoing instruction. So obviously that's an existential threat to some of these businesses.

Furthermore, we're looking at potentially 50% to 60% of our small businesses along the Mission Bernal corridor

threatened by displacement under SB 79, for which we understand there aren't any direct protections or mitigations

currently in place at the moment.

And so that's something that obviously we're very concerned about.

And, you know, I think as well in light of the plan for the Safeway at Mission 30th,

obviously a very ambitious plan that came out yesterday, you know,

We think that's a kind of indicator that some of this convergence and intensification of development is only set to intensify.

So I'd ask you today as commissioners to please take a careful look beyond the upzoning of SB 79 and examine the critical need for comprehensive mitigation measures that must accompany its density changes.

And admittedly, much of that may extend beyond the purview of the Planning Commission, but I would offer that that's really what's required here is a kind of a concerted interdepartmental effort to kind of examine and mitigate the impacts of these to our neighborhoods.

And I also invite you to come down to Mission Portal and see for yourself how this is unfolding, since, as I say, I think our corridor offers a preview of some of the challenges of implementing these.

Thank you so much.

last call for general public comment items not on today's agenda

seeing none general public comment is closed we can move on to your regular

calendar commissioners for item 7 case number 2017 hyphen zero zero seven four

six eight ENV the SFO recommended airport development plans certification

of the final environmental impact report please note that the public hearing on

the draft EIR is closed. The public comment period for the draft EIR ended on June 2,

2025. Public comment will be received. However, those comments will not be included in the

final EIR. And if I recall correctly, Commissioner Campbell, you have a disclosure?

Actually, I have a recusal. I work at Gensler, and we do do a tremendous amount of work at SFO.

This is what's before us is centered around an airport development plan,

and there is scope in here, specifically a new terminal boarding area,

which is something we are definitely tracking and likely pursuing down the road.

So I think it's best to recuse myself from this item.

Is there a motion to recuse Commissioner Campbell?

Commissioner Imperial?

Move to recuse Commissioner Campbell.

Second.

Thank you. Commissioners, on that motion to recuse Commissioner Campbell. Commissioner Campbell? Aye. Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And Commissioner President Soh? Aye. So move, Commissioners. That motion passes unanimously 6-0. Commissioner Campbell, you are hereby recused.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

I'm Keizushi, planning department staff and environmental case coordinator for the SFO recommended airport development plan or the proposed project.

Joining me today are Audrey Park, environmental affairs manager at SFO,

Tanya Shainer, environmental case supervisor, and planning department technical reviewers for this EIR.

Can my presentation be up?

The item before you is the public hearing on the certification of the SCFO,

recommended airport development plan, final environmental impact report, or final EIR.

The purpose of today's hearing is to take public comments on the adequacy, accuracy,

and completeness of the final EIR pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act,

or CEQA, and San Francisco Local Procedures for Implementing CEQA.

Since the publication of the Responses to Comments document,

we received a letter from concerned residents of Palo Alto dated November 12, 2025,

stating that the response to comments document prepared for the project is inadequate

and requesting that the Planning Commission withhold certification of this EIR.

We have also received a letter from the city of Palo Alto dated November 19, 2025, raising various concerns related to the EIR and requesting that a revised draft EIR be recirculated for public review.

Department staff carefully reviewed these letters and concluded that they do not raise any new environmental issues that had not been addressed in the draft EIR or response to comments document.

As I will discuss further later in our presentation, planning department staff recommends that the planning commission certify the final EIR today.

I will now hand it over to Audrey Park with SFO, who will be providing an overview of the existing project site and the proposed project.

After Audrey's presentation, I'll briefly provide information regarding CEQA review that was done thus far for this project and public comments raised on the draft EIR as well as next steps of the overall process.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, esteemed members of the Planning Commission, Planning Department, and the public.

My name is Audrey Park with San Francisco International Airport, a department of the city and county of San Francisco.

And I'm here to provide you with a brief refresher of the recommended airport development plan, or the RADP.

In 2016, SFO prepared the draft final airport development plan as a long-range landside development plan

containing the vision for how SFO would accommodate growth in demand for air travel to and from the Bay Area.

As passenger demand for air travel grows over decades, it would trigger certain RADP projects for development over those decades.

The RADP is about when growth in air travel occurs, how can SFO accommodate that demand in a way that elevates guest service and amenities that is reflective of San Francisco.

As you can see in the site map, the RADP largely contains the development of landside facilities such as boarding areas, parking garages, and aircraft parking aprons.

These facilities are right-sized to match the capacity of the existing runway configuration in their existing form.

So in another words, it would not make sense to build 100 new gates if the runways cannot accommodate the aircraft operations to utilize all 100 gates.

Facilities in the RADP are right-sized to match the ultimate capacity of the runways.

There are no changes or expansions proposed to the existing runway system or to the aircraft flight paths or the aircraft procedures.

These are the purview of the FAA as empowered by Congress.

Next slide, please.

This slide provides the planning study goals and objectives, which is reflected in the selection of the RADP projects.

First and foremost, SFO wants to provide the highest level of guest service and be the number one long-haul and international gateway of choice.

We think we can achieve this by optimizing our existing airport operations, including aircraft or airfield movement, so there are no delays for our passengers, leveraging technology and maximizing common use facilities for our airline partners, and maximizing gate capacity and flexibility, which I'll touch on in a little bit.

Overall, we want to make smart airport land use choices for decades to come within the limited airport land that we have today.

The new boarding area H is a project example which would provide contact gates with passenger boarding bridges that could accommodate both international and domestic flights, depending on the demand of the traveling public.

So we would have secure a passenger corridor for convenient connections to other terminals and bypass security checkpoints.

We would also have a sterile corridor to the Federal Inspection Station for international arrivals.

And most importantly for SFO, this new boarding area would remove the need to develop hard stand gates where passengers would get bused to the airfield and board and deplane from the ramp.

While hard stands are common in other continents, SFOs, similar to other U.S. airports, want to accommodate passengers with contact gates.

We want our passengers to board an aircraft from a comfortable and convenient boarding bridge.

These facilities do not induce people to decide to travel to or from the Bay Area,

nor does it induce airlines to add new flights.

As a business, airlines react to realized demand.

They add flights in response when a flight is consistently booked out, purchased by us.

We purchase the tickets, and we fill those planes,

and in response, airlines add routes that are popular amongst passengers.

And if we continue to have growing desire for air travel, whether for leisure or business,

domestic and international airlines add flights in response.

Again, the RADP is about how we accommodate them if that demand is realized in the future.

It can be the travel experience we get with hard-stand bus operations,

or it can be from a comfortable contact gate.

Second project example.

A central hub would replace the existing central parking garage, which is located within the terminal area.

Again, this garage is seismically deficient under current California building code.

Instead of an in-kind replacement, the RADP envisions an integrated multimodal ground transportation hub and parking facility.

This is, again, about how we can accommodate passengers.

We envision the new hub to accommodate different ground transportation modes with different levels designated for public transit, shuttle and charter, taxis and transportation network companies, and employee and public parking that would also alleviate traffic congestion on the existing domestic terminal roadway.

There would be integrated lounges and wait areas for a sense of place for all of our airport guests.

Lastly, for the third and final example, if there continues to be demand for aircraft

maintenance on the West Coast, SFO could develop a new maintenance hangar that accommodates

up to two additional wide-body aircraft.

As with other RADP projects, if there is no demand in the future for that use, we would

not build it.

But the RADP contemplates that as part of ultimate build-out.

As with all such capital improvement projects, SFO would fund and finance the RADP with airport

revenues only and some federal funding for airfield or grant eligible projects.

In fiscal year 24-25, SFO made an annual service payment of $58 million to the city

from airport revenues.

Thank you.

Keizushi, department staff again.

The draft EIR was published on April 16, 2025,

and the public comment period closed on June 2, 2025.

The department received comments from 33 individuals, agencies, and organizations

in response to the publication of the draft EIR,

including questions and comments related to analysis assumptions,

transportation, noise, air quality, cumulative analysis, alternatives, biological resources, cultural resources, hydrology and water quality, public services, recreation and utilities and service systems.

The comments did not raise any new environmental issues that had not been addressed in the draft EIR.

The responses to comments document published on November 4, 2025 responds to the issues raised by the commenters.

The project would result in significant impacts regarding the environment topics shown on the slide.

All project significant impacts would be mitigated to a less than significant level, except that the project would result in significant and unavoidable operational air quality impacts.

To address the impacts requiring mitigation measures, the EIR analyzed three feasible alternatives to the proposed project under CEQA.

the no project alternatives, which is an alternative required to be analyzed under CEQA,

the reduced development alternative, which would remove from the proposed project

the boarding area H international terminal building main hall expansion

and aircraft maintenance hangar projects to eliminate the project's significant

and unavoidable operational air quality impacts.

The boarding area H-only alternative would remove all RADP projects from the proposed project, except that boarding area H project to eliminate the project's significant and unavoidable operational air quality impacts.

The alternatives represent a reasonable range of alternatives for the EIR analysis and would avoid or reduce the less-than-significant with mitigation impacts of the proposed project.

the draft EIR in response to comments document constitute the final EIR

planning department staff recommends that the planning commission

adapt the motion before you which would certify the contents of the final EIR

are adequate and accurate and the procedures through which the final EIR

was prepared comply with the provision of CEQA

the CEQA guidelines chapter 31 of the San Francisco Administrative Code

implementation of the project would result in less than significant impacts with mitigation

applied except that the project would result in significant and unavoidable operational air quality

impacts staff from sfo planning department and i are here to answer any questions you may have

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

last call public communists closed and this environmental impact report is now

before you commissioners

I am satisfied with the environmental impact analysis report analysis and with the response

to comments further review the letters that were submitted after closing the public comment

period and I agree with staff that they didn't raise issues that weren't already addressed

in the analysis and in the response to comments.

So I do agree that the final EIR is adequate, accurate,

and complete, and so I move to certify.

I second.

Commissioner McGarry.

I would agree, and I think it's fantastic

that we actually have the hangar maintenance that can take two wide

bodies by body and aircraft with the amount of aircraft that are going in

there that is something that airports are actually putting out space here is

constrained but the fact that we can actually work that in to possibly what

we think is the best airport in the world it certainly will service all the

planes that it needs thank you Commissioner Imperial yeah I also want

to support the certification of the IR.

And at the same time, I also want to appreciate the comments that we received from Ciudad

of Palo Alto, from the BART in terms of their concerns.

However, the EIR, as it laid out, actually put a lot of mitigations on this.

And the concern about the, I guess, the increase, I think, the increase of flights,

I think that it's something beyond the EIR that can uphold.

And also in terms of the BART, I think there were also concerns about the construction and how it would affect.

But again, it was also addressed in the EIR as well in terms of the construction of that.

The only thing that I would point out from the BART's letter is around the connection.

I think in terms of the long-term goals of the connection of the BART and also the Caltrain.

There are also the plan of the Caltrain.

So there seems to have some regional planning around the transportation.

And this might be beyond the AR, but I'd like to, if there's any information about those connections on transportation,

is that something that is still in the works?

I can see that this is this is like a 20-year project and can someone speak

something about that?

Thank you for the question Commissioner. Yes, it is something that all of the

projects are demand triggered and when that demand is realized then it sets in

motion the very long you know public project delivery process including

environmental review if there needs to be additional or financing all of those

city processes that we have to go through and then we look at

implementation there okay thank you thank you so much yeah I just like to I

think this is an exciting project I know this could if it's realized this is a

lot of work I understand that and so but nevertheless this is an exciting project

and I think there needs some improvements in and that's the full even

though it's one of the best airports actually in the country so we should be

proud of that so thank you thank you Commissioner Imperial this is a pretty

robust EIR study I don't know how long it took you guys to do it and I saw that

you have a lot of exhibit coming into that packet. You had cross-checked your findings

with EPA and other federal agencies. Really appreciate the thoroughness of it and also

the attentiveness to your neighboring communities. And I did ask this question to our team and

I would probably like one of you to re-illiterate that the monitoring component after the EIR

to looking into how SFO addressed all these environmental mitigation.

If you don't mind one of you to come and just describe this a little bit in public,

so it's on the record of how often and what is this process with people.

Basically, I think to address some of the concerns or the unknown of like now it is a nitigate,

It's determined to be having negative impact, but there are a lot of mitigations.

And so how is the monitoring component worked out?

I trust that there's a lot of really great partnership we have with the airport department.

But I think I'm just asking this question, too, so that everyone can hear it and watch it on TV.

Chelsea Fordham, planning department staff.

I'm a principal planner.

I manage our environmental monitoring team.

And the process is that basically, you know, who's responsible for what in implementing the mitigation measures is outlined in the MMRP, which has to be adopted as a condition of approval.

And it basically lays out who's responsible for implementing.

Many of those things need to be reviewed and approved by the planning department.

And we have the same staff that are here doing air quality analysis, review those mitigation measures as well, make sure they meet the requirements.

And we usually have, you know, several rounds of review to make sure they meet the intent.

And then they are incorporated into any type of construction documents before construction starts.

And if they're ongoing operational, they are submitted to us with the frequency of the MMRP.

MRP so it is usually done before every single project goes to construction

Thank you. Thank you for explaining to us and the public appreciate it

Okay commissioners if there's nothing further there is a motion that has been seconded to certify the

Environmental Impact Report on that motion Commissioner McGarry

Commissioner Braun

Aye.

Commissioner Imperial?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore?

Aye.

And Commissioner President Soh?

Aye.

So move, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously 5 to 0.

And we'll place us on item 8 for case number 2007.0903PHA-07 for 449 Avenue H, major modification.

Commissioner Moore, I believe you have a disclosure to make.

Yes.

Out of abundance of caution, I request that my fellow commissioners, excuse me,

from participating in the consideration for the upcoming item, the Treasure Island Project 2011 project with D4Ds,

which we are considering today, were prepared by SOM.

And as a retired associate partner of the firm, I receive an annual payment, which requires that I recuse myself.

Do I hear a motion to recuse Commissioner Moore?

Commissioner Imperial?

Move to recuse Vice President Moore.

Thank you, Commissioners.

On that motion to recuse Commissioner Moore, Commissioner Campbell?

Aye.

Commissioner McGarry?

Aye.

Commissioner Braun?

Aye.

Commissioner Imperial?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore, you are hereby recused.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Elizabeth Mao, Planning Department staff. The application

before you is a request for a major modification from the facade transparency standard of the

Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island Design for Development, or D4D. The proposed project

includes the construction of a new practice facility for the Bay Area's National Women's

Soccer League Team, Bay FC, on Treasure Island. The project includes a one-story athletic

training building with three soccer practice fields. The project site is within the Treasure

Island Open Space Zoning District, specifically within an area of the island envisioned for a

multi-use sports park. The major modification would reduce the design standard in the D4D

from 65% transparent to 13.9% transparent along the street-facing facade of the proposed athletic

training building. The project's use as a sports practice facility, along with its end user BayFC,

creates a unique scenario where player privacy is essential for a national women's soccer team.

As a result, there is little to no opportunity to provide a fully compliant and functionally

adequate level of facade transparency facing the street without sacrificing building operations

to meet the needs of professional athletes. For these reasons, staff recommends approval of the

major modification. The department has received one additional letter in support from one Treasure

Island since the publication of the packet. In total, the department has received five letters

of support and no letters in opposition to the project. Sorry, in total, the department has

received six letters of support, so two letters have been received in support since the publication

of the packet and no letters in opposition to the project. This concludes my presentation and I am

available for any questions. Staff from the Treasure Island Development Authority are also

here and available for any questions, and the project sponsor will present now.

Project sponsor, you have five minutes.

Hi. Thank you, commissioners, for having us today.

I'm Lisa Goodwin-Shariff. I'm an executive vice president at Bay FC,

and with me today is Laura Sin with our architect firm. Before I turn it over to

Laura to talk about the design, I just want to briefly share a little bit about Bay FC

and what this facility would mean to us.

We are the professional soccer team competing in the National Women's Soccer League,

representing the Bay Area, and we just finished our second season.

This facility would be one of the few training facilities built and created

specifically for women across the country and across the world.

And it would be so fitting for Bay FC to literally be in the middle of the Bay,

right on Treasure Island in San Francisco.

And the city of San Francisco would be our partner in building the standard

for what women's facilities will be.

While only heading into our third season,

we have global aspirations

and want to be a global sports franchise.

And every sports franchise needs a home,

and this would be that for us.

It would be our home and our heartbeat

for our athletes and our players and our coaching staff.

And it would give our players the resources

and training facilities they need

to compete at the highest level

and hopefully bring home championships

back here to San Francisco.

We're also excited about the opportunity

to be on Treasure Island specifically.

We know the island already has a rich history of sports, and we look forward to adding to it if we can.

We also know residents and organizations have been there for decades, but that it's also going through a revitalization.

We've already been connecting really closely with the community on Treasure Island and throughout San Francisco.

Our general contractor is DevCon, and we've connected them with One Treasure Island's workforce development group already and look forward to hiring local.

We also have and will continue to volunteer at One Treasure Island's weekly food pantry,

attending their annual galas.

We held a soccer clinic at the YMCA on Treasure Island for local youth.

We hosted a student from Life Learning Academy, the public high school on the island,

as an intern this summer at our business offices, which is also here in San Francisco, in SOMA.

And we're working with them to develop a health and wellness platform for the students at Life

Learning Academy.

Broadly across San Francisco, we're also committed to community impact.

Through our partnership with Visa, we're launching next year a girls-only soccer league for the boys and girls clubs in San Francisco.

And we did this last year, and we're doing it again this year.

We're volunteering at the fire department's annual toy drive.

So this facility would give us the chance to continue to connect with the community in Treasure Island and San Francisco

and also give our athletes the resources they deserve to compete for championships.

and again, hopefully bring them here to San Francisco.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Laura.

Thank you.

So I'm just going to briefly give an overview of the site design and the building design.

Are we able to bring up?

SFGF, can we go back to the computer, please?

Yeah, thank you.

And so as Lisa mentioned, the facility is proposed in the heart of the Bay,

in the heart of the Treasure Island ongoing development.

You can see there that's the urban park that's planned, part of which is dedicated sports park.

This will be joining some facilities, sports facilities that are already there and hopefully

to be a catalyst for continued development of that sports park, which you see on the right.

The site itself, as was mentioned, has three full-size soccer pitches.

It has the single-story 24,000 square foot facility, as well as dedicated parking to

accommodate the staff and athletes that would use the facility.

The building itself is oriented in the northeast corner of the site to kind of engage Mackie

Lane, which is planned to be the main thoroughfare there.

It is set back slightly from the street to create a planted buffer to tie into the larger park system and kind of emphasize that park pedestrian experience along this thoroughfare.

While it strives to also be, as Lisa said, set a standard for women's professional facilities in performance, we also hope to do the same just in aesthetics and to embrace the aesthetics of the Bay Area and the marine environment.

That said, it is a mass timber building.

We'll expose that structure.

We have some wood siding that will age over time into a driftwood aesthetic, kind of just embracing that marine environment.

And the facility itself orients the performance spaces onto the pitch.

It can open up and become naturally ventilated to create this seamless transition of indoor-outdoor,

again, embracing and celebrating what it means to be in the Bay Area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, if that concludes project sponsor's presentation, we should open up public comment.

Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter.

Hello, President and Sollum, Commissioners.

I'm here today representing One Treasure Island.

Since we've partnered with Bay FC, they have shown a commitment to the inclusion and development of the Treasure Island community.

As we continue to develop the island and revitalize with some of the new buildings and housing that we're building on the island, this fits right in perfectly.

As mentioned, they've attended our galas, but more importantly, they've been present at our community events and continue to show support for our community through the growth and development of programming for the youth of the island, particularly the young women.

So we are very happy to support Bay FC and look forward to the building of this training facility.

Thank you.

Last call for public comment.

Seeing none, public comment is closed.

This matter is now before you, commissioners.

Commissioner Campbell?

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I think we always have the best of intentions when we lay out these design standards for these larger developments.

And as we've seen, not only does the world change, but we can't predict every scenario.

And I do think a training facility of this nature is incredibly unique.

and it's a very unique building typology as well.

And it really does want to be a more inward-facing type of campus,

and I appreciate the challenges of that

in conjunction with the standards we set out years ago.

So I think what makes up for not being able to meet the facade transparency

is what I see as a lovely design.

and you know to me that's really made up by the choice of materials and what we're seeing when we

are experiencing the building along Mackie Lane I guess is it Mackie am I saying that right

the I'm seeing you know very kind of like high touch materials that corrugated metal and the

wood I think and and this kind of very like soft lush landscape I if we're able to sort of like

persevere with that in the execution I think it more than makes up for the lack of transparency

dictated by the standards.

This gives me zero concern.

I'm more excited just to see it happen.

I think everything that's going on on Treasure Island

is just thrilling.

So I would make a motion to approve.

I see we have a couple of other folks

that would like to comment.

Thank you. Commissioner Braun?

I second the motion to approve.

So it's not only is it exciting to get the facility itself,

but also to see this site being improved.

Not too long ago, I took the ferry over

and walked most of the publicly accessible areas

of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

And this lot in particular really stands out

just because of all the dirt that's been moved to it

and basically created a mountain.

And I was sort of baffled by it.

So it's great to now see this come before the commission

and see what the future vision is for the site.

I appreciate the revised rendering

that was just shared during today's hearing

because one of my questions was going to be some confusion about, you know,

we had the plans that showed where the sidewalk, public sidewalk,

was relative to the landscaping and building.

The rendering didn't show it,

and so I'm glad to now see kind of what the vision is a little bit more clearly

in the revised rendering.

So I don't have a concern there.

And I agree with Commissioner Campbell that the, you know,

I'm not a design person, but even so, you know,

I'm looking at what the street environment is for pedestrians on the public

SIDEWALK AND SEEING THAT THE AMOUNT OF LANDSCAPING REALLY DOES A GOOD JOB OF SCREENING THE BUILDING

AND MAKING KIND OF SOFTENING THIS EDGE WHERE THERE IS THIS REDUCED TRANSPARENCY.

SO THAT'S WHY I DO SUPPORT THIS.

AND THOSE ARE ALL MY COMMENTS.

SO YEAH, I AM IN FULL SUPPORT.

THANK YOU.

COMMISSIONER MCGARY.

I LOVE SOCCER.

THIS IS EXCITING FOR ME.

Downside, I've got three boys, you know.

But all three of them, well, two of the three have played in the baseball fields that are next to you.

So, and the dirt there, that's for compaction.

So you'll have a, you'll slice it off and get a nice, perfect level field.

I'd agree with everything, but I just wish you well, and I look forward to getting season tickets.

Go Bay FC.

Thank you.

Thank you. Sounds like a pretty fun presentation. It's great and lighthearted. I have been frequently visiting Treasure Island in recent weeks, and it's been wonderful, and I would like to see a lot more activities going to Treasure Island, bringing a world-class all-women soccer lead.

It's really amazing.

My daughter used to play soccer and now switched to volleyball.

But I really applaud your courage to pick San Francisco to plan roots.

I have just a few questions, and I have no issues without reducing that transparency.

I understand that quite some time for professional athletes, particularly for women,

it is a really critical privacy is very critical especially when they get really famous

so I'm not going to hear to talk about the design of the building per se but I'm just looking at

the beauty of Treasure Island master plan has this diagonal grid and now first I look at your

drawings I thought it was just a branding rectangle and then I realized

today I see that it is actually the planets a big rectangle in the middle of

all of our diagonal grid I wonder is there any challenges that you couldn't

really continue to respect the diagonal grid but just kind of like really looking

just kind of put in a right in the middle. It's going to, it's going to see, it's going to greet

us every time we land SFO speaking of. Yeah. Lizzie Mal department staff. So I think the

portion of the site that you're talking about would be if we're looking in plan view, the south

west corner of the lot is where we're cutting through that diagonal grid that we have on

Treasure Island. And so we have some TIDA staff here, so Joey can follow up with additional

information, but that's a temporary lease line. So right now it's going to act as a temporary

parking lot for the training facility with the intention of restoring that land. And so that's

intended for the agricultural park in Treasure Island. And so that's kind of where we see those

diagonal grid lines. And then that's been arranged with the Treasure Island Development Authority

on that lease basis.

So to summarize, the diagonal grid will be

disregarded or it will be somehow eventually restored?

It should be eventually restored

after a period of time. With the urban farm? Yes.

Okay. And that's just on the bottom left corner?

Yes, on the bottom left corner. Okay. Awesome.

My other question is regarding to that youth program, I think the – yeah, I forgot your name.

I'm sorry.

You mentioned about youth program, and I knew that, like, there are going to be continued to increase population in Treasure Island, the local communities.

Do you have any kind of local incentive program to encourage residents to participate in these training, the soon-to-be-a-wannabe soccer, amazing soccer girls?

Yeah, thank you.

Lisa with Bay FC again.

Absolutely.

So our whole mission from a community perspective is to create access to sport and build leaders in our community.

So this facility will give us a space to do that, invite them in, watch our trainings, hear from our players, be a part of what we're building there.

And we are our goal this year. We hosted nearly 10,000 community members at our matches.

I think this facility can add to that.

So the hope is that we can continue to make an impact on all of the little girls and Commissioner McGarry, little boys throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area

and continue to provide access to the sport and hopefully build future leaders in our community.

Would you be creating programs to encourage?

There's equity issues.

I know that the Treasure Island residents are often concerned.

Would there be any subsidies or sliding scale of family that can participate from the local communities?

Our, from a community impact perspective, everything on our end is at no cost to the community attendees that we have.

Our goal is to serve the underserved and the nonprofit groups that their audience is focused on that.

So, yes, it is.

We love the youth soccer teams.

We want to still be a part of those groups and have them have access as well.

But when we think of community impact, it is to the underserved and marginalized communities at no cost.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have one last question.

I'm sorry I keep asking.

This is my last question, probably perhaps to the architect.

I noticed that you have some parking arrangement in the program.

Is it exceeding the capacity or is it just kind of minimum capacity?

Yeah, right now there's actually exceeds the capacity for the,

there's a dedicated staff lot, which is the capacity of the team,

and then an additional lot,

which exceeds the capacity of the staff that would serve the facility.

That's great.

And then you might have some sign to say be kind, to yield for people,

and not fighting for parking spots, right?

Yes.

It's kind of like that when people visit San Francisco.

They just kind of took over people's spot when they wait for it.

There are dedicated bike and car share and things like that as well right there.

That's great. Thank you.

And Commissioner Braun, you have one more coming?

I have a question about something that was noted in the staff report and it's not it's not directly

related to this project and so I I know that there are members of their staff from Treasure Island

Development Authority here and so if you're able to answer the question I'd appreciate it but if

not I understand the the staff report references that to the north of the site there is the grocery

store and warehouse building and it says that that area is going is slated to also we've also become

open space. I'm just curious, what is sort of the future vision for Treasure Island as far as

having groceries and fresh food on site, given that I believe that's the sole source of groceries

today? Hi, commissioners. Joey with Treasure Island Development Authority, vertical development

project manager. We certainly would not move the tenant from the grocery store off the island prior

to having them move into a new facility or executing a lease for some other operator of a

grocery store. But currently in the design for development, it was envisioned that one of the

historical hangers on the island would house maybe like a food market hall or grocery store.

the the exact location for the future grocery store is not set but there's

hundreds of thousands of planned commercial space

on the island that could accommodate that okay thank you i appreciate that

thank you i know what the question came out left field but it was

just something i want to make sure is being addressed thanks

very good question i think we're ready to vote okay commissioners there is a

motion that has been seconded to approve this matter on that motion. Commissioner Campbell? Aye.

Commissioner McGarry? Aye. Commissioner Braun? Aye. Commissioner Imperial? Aye.

Commissioner President Soh? Aye. So move, commissioners, that motion passes unanimously

5 to 0. Commissioners, that'll place us on the final item on your agenda today,

number 9, case number 2021-005878PCA for the family zoning plan, planning code text amendments.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Lisa Chen with Plain Department staff.

Good to see you again.

So we are here today with members of our rezoning team as well as our preservation staff to present a revised amendment to the family zoning plan that was raised during the adoption process at the Board of Supervisors.

So we won't be giving the full background on the plan, as you know, we have had many hearings.

So we'll be really focused today on the amendment that was made at the board.

So we'll do a brief recap of the process thus far.

We'll dive into the legislation that is before you today and then describe our department

recommendations.

So the action for you today is a duplicate ordinance of the Planning, Business, and Tax

Regulations Code Ordinance, file 251072.

We are recommending adoption with modifications.

I will note that this morning we sent by email a revised recommendation.

We've also just distributed it to you in paper form for your reference, and we'll be going over that today.

I know you have been receiving updates from Mr. Aaron Starr on our process, but to recap, this is our adoption process thus far and our anticipated hearings to come.

So following the adoption hearing at this commission in early September, we have had three hearings at the Land Use and Transportation Committee of the board, most recently on Monday.

Today we are hearing the one piece of legislation or the one amendment that required re-referral to the commission.

And following this, the legislation will be heard again at the December 1st land use hearing.

We anticipate that after that, it'll be going to the full Board of Supervisors.

Of course, this is all subject to change.

And the upcoming deadlines are December 19th, when the charter stipulates that the general

plan amendments that you all approved are deemed approved by the board if they don't

take action before that date.

And then the ultimate deadline from the state is January 31st of next year for the full

rezoning to be adopted.

We also wanted to clarify the record because I know it can get complicated with various

duplicates of the ordinance that are active. So today, so sorry, stepping back, the original

ordinance that you saw, file 250701, is what's going to be considered at the December 1st Land

Use and Transportation Committee. That file includes amendments that have been adopted by

the land use committee that the department advised are generally compliant with state requirements.

The two duplicate files are the one that you are reviewing today, 251072. This is the one that

includes the amendment by Board President Mandelman, which would restrict lot mergers on

historic properties citywide subject to certain conditions. There is another duplicate ordinance,

251073 that was tabled at monday's land use hearing and that includes amendments by supervisors

that were not accepted by the land use committee for a variety of reasons but we we did note that

several of them have impacts on potential compliance with state law and our housing element

so the ordinance today has this lot merger amendment as noted so it would update section

121.7 to prohibit lot mergers citywide, so this is going beyond the boundaries of the family zoning

plan, on lots that contain certain types of historic resources listed here. The prohibition

is exempt, however, if the project preserves the historic resource and complies with the

preservation design standards. I'm not going to read every line of this definition. It is quite

expansive. As you can see, it includes various historic resources under Article 10 and 11.

It includes our state and local registers, and it also includes surveys and historic context

statements. So as noted, we are recommending approval with modifications, and I'll be going

over the revised recommendations that we provided to you this morning.

So, our first recommendation is that we remove the proposed list of historic resources that

are subject to the restriction of lot mergers, and instead substitute it with a reference

to the Planning Code's existing definition of historic buildings, as noted in Section

102.

We believe this would create greater clarity and alignment with other Planning Code policies.

There are other policies in the Code that already refer to this definition, and so it's

clearer for members of the public, for our own staff, frankly, as well as sponsors. It also ensures

that the policy does not add a development constraint on sites that do not have known

historic resources. As I noted earlier, the definition that's currently in the legislation

is quite expansive, and it includes things like non-contributing sites in historic districts,

whether eligible or listed districts. It also can include, at times, Category B and Category C

properties if they are listed in a historic context statement. So we think that this existing

definition that we have is much clearer, and it also ensures that we're not adding additional

constraints, which is something that HCD has cautions about on sites that are not known to

have historic resources. Our second recommendation is that we clarify that in instances where the

preservation design standards are inconsistent with the modified standards in the local program

or the housing choice sf program the standards in the local program will prevail as long as they do

not result in the demolition of the resource again this we believe this would provide greater clarity

and certainty around development standards right now the legislation as drafted is silent on the

issue creating perhaps some legal gray area as to which one would be would prevail and whether you

not, you would still be eligible for the lot merger if you are following the local program.

It also ensures that we continue to have meaningful incentives for projects that choose to use the

local program in the family zoning plan. As you recall, we've had many hearings where we really

crafted the incentives in the local program so that they are meant to provide a little bit of

flexibility and incentivize projects to use our local standards, including our preservation design

standards, our broader citywide design standards, and other planning code standards.

And we just want to note that broadly the local program and preservation design standards are

aligned with each other. We could only find one instance where maybe there's a bit of inconsistency,

but this would also just allow for any minor inconsistencies going forward,

because we know that the local program will continue to evolve,

we know the preservation design standards will also continue to evolve.

Our recommendation three is to clarify that the lot merger prohibition shall only apply

to housing development projects as defined in state law, specifically in the Housing

Accountability Act.

So the rationale here is that discretionary projects that are not HAA protected already

undergo environmental review processes and are generally not eligible to use the state

ministerial streamlining laws.

of project scopes include single-family homes, non-residential projects, and mixed-use projects

that are not majority residential. So these projects are already going through environmental

review, as noted, and that process may uncover mitigations or changes to the project to avoid

impacts on historic resources. The mitigations could be different, or they could be, in some

cases, stronger than what's in the preservation design standards. And so we think that this

amendment would basically clarify that this is really only focused on projects that are perhaps

ministerially approved, projects that are housing development projects. And again, similar to the

other recommendation, we also want to note that because these processes continue to apply, the

prohibition could add an unnecessary additional development constraints that could in some cases

pose a barrier to successful adaptive reuse of the projects. We have seen with projects in the past

that have successfully reused and preserved historic resources that lot mergers sometimes

are necessary and helpful to the preservation of the resource. It allows you to build on top of,

around, next to, throughout the resource. And so we just want to make sure that we're being

really judicious in how we're applying this prohibition. Our final recommendation is not

related specifically to the ordinance itself, but we wanted to reiterate that the department

should continue to evaluate the preservation design standards at some point in the future

after it's been applied to more projects. I think at the latest count, maybe no projects have yet

used it. And we should see if there should be adjustments that could be made to ensure that

they are achievable and really reaching the spirit of preserving the resource while not

prohibiting housing development. And so, you know, in the areas where the local program applies, so,

So, you know, again, this is a citywide policy, but in the plan area itself, you know, there could be additional incentives that are offered through the local program if it's found that additional flexibility is needed.

So we just want to, before we close the presentation, also just want to remind people and reiterate

that we have a whole range of preservation policies and programs that are really designed

to support adaptive reuse and preservation of existing resources. So of course we have

our demolition protections. So in addition to article 10 and 11 requirements, our local program

does not allow demolition of resources, and the various state housing programs also do not allow

demolition. And then in the recent amendments from this last week, the board went a step further and

actually exempted listed and designated landmarks from the rezoning itself. We, of course, also have

mentioned our preservation design standards, which are really meant to provide clear standards for

adaptive reuse. We have our environmental review process requiring various mitigations and other

actions. And then, of course, our SF survey program and our landmarking programs together are really

about making sure we have the adequate designations and protections in place for our resources.

So the SF survey, of course, identifies resources that are eligible for listing or designation

and is currently prioritizing the sites that may be more susceptible to development in the future.

Similarly, our landmarking program really accelerates the landmarking process for the most notable properties, historic resources, providing them the added layer of protection.

Finally, we have a range of adaptive reuse incentives, including in our local program, you all recommended that we add an adaptive reuse incentive, which has been amended into the ordinance.

We also have our existing Mills Act and TDR programs, as well as other efforts.

So finally, we wanted to, I know this has been very dense, we wanted to show some examples

of adaptive reuse in real life.

Just coincidentally, all of these use brick, but we know adaptive reuse does not always

use brick.

But these are all examples of projects that did require a lot merger in some way or another

throughout the city.

And I think they're really exemplary projects that show how development can breathe new

life into an existing resource.

can kind of bring a new chapter of use to these resources and make sure that they're

used and really stewarded into the future.

So I wanted to thank the commission for your guidance on the plan so far, and we're looking

forward to your comments today.

I also apologize, Calvin.

We do have Calvin Ho from President Mandelman's office here.

He's also going to be giving some remarks on our work together.

We have been working very closely with them.

We're continuing to work with them.

So even as we have recommendations today, we're continuing to refine them.

We're mostly in agreement.

There may be some areas where we're continuing to see how we can find common ground.

I also want to really thank our Historic Preservation team.

They have been with us in lockstep throughout the entire rezoning.

You may recall that they were at all of our open houses as well, and we continue to do outreach with them.

And so that's Rich Sucre, Maggie Smith, Melanie Bishop,

Francis McMillan, Alex Westhoff, and many others.

They have really made sure that preservation is embedded

throughout the family zoning plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

With that, we should take public comment.

Members?

No?

Sorry, to clarify, Calvin Ho is going to just give some comments

from the President Mandelman's office.

Come on up.

Thanks, Lisa.

I'll keep my remarks very brief. Good afternoon, commissioners. We are supportive of the first

modification to change the definition to refer to historic buildings. We are not supportive

of modifications two or three and are fine with modification number four. I want to thank Lisa,

and I want to thank Rachel and Rich and everyone at Planning who has been helping us in our efforts

to preserve historic resources, so I just wanted to say thank you for your partnership on that. Thank you.

Okay, if that does conclude presentations, we should take public comment.

Members of the public, this is your opportunity to address the commission on this matter.

You need to come forward.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

I would like to say that I am extremely disappointed in the way this has rolled out.

There are assertions that there is provision for affordable housing through inclusionary fees.

failing to mention that large numbers of lots are upzoned in levels that are suitable for less than 10 units

and therefore do not pay inclusionary fees.

And I raised this in a general public comment a while back.

I tried to get clarification from planning staff if that was an accurate assessment or not.

It should be a simple yes or no, right?

If they've gone through this legislation and understand it, haven't gotten a response back yet.

My sense is you have established a process,

and by the way, I'm going to ask Paul Wormer if I didn't say that before.

You have established a process that is easily gamed to build very expensive units

with no inclusionary housing or inclusionary fees,

and where you have an inclusionary fee paid at under $250 a square foot,

that pays what percentage of the cost of actual construction?

I know you can't answer me on that, but let's just say it's less than half.

And it talks about matching funds, but sort of ignores the fact that the feds have cut all sorts of programs,

because after all, they're fiscally responsible.

And so what we're doing is creating something that encourages very, very expensive units,

doesn't do much to encourage moderately priced units, and by moderately priced,

I mean things affordable to making $150,000 to $300,000.

It doesn't do much to encourage that because the land costs are too high

and aggravates the situation for the very low-income and low-income

and moderate-income households.

And that's a problem.

That does not serve the city well.

I understand fully that you are constrained by legislation

that is foolish and ill-considered.

And I'm disappointed that none of you have had the courage to stand up and make that point publicly, that you are trapped in a bad situation and trying to do the best out of it, and call to account politicians who have played games for political advantage and donations from developers.

So you're not solving any problems.

You're making some problems worth, and you're really creating opportunities for the mayor's brother,

who was that real estate agent.

You may remember his quote a couple of three weeks ago.

He can't find enough mansions for his clients.

He'll do well with 4,000 square foot flats with nice views.

Thank you.

Last call for public comment.

again you need to come forward

this is not general public comment

this is public comment on the family zoning plan

sure yeah

come on up

come on up

sorry

sorry

I've got a bad voice

I had treatment cancer

surgery on my throat

But anyway, here I am because I care so much about this.

I'm a West Russian Hill neighbor.

I live on Union Street between Van Ness and Polk.

And as I'm sure you're aware, we have been disproportionately impacted.

Here I am, this is our little Edwardian.

And as you see, there's all the magenta climbing up and surrounding me.

I have photos that have been promulgated that really show how bad it is.

But, and then as one goes up a little bit, it goes from 140 feet to 250 feet, and then 300, as you know, when you get to Broadway.

The disproportionate impact is huge.

One reason I'm here is to try and figure out, they just made another amendment where they took away some other ill-conceived height, and they just threw it onto Van Ness.

I don't even know where. I've tried to call our supervisor.

It'll sort of be one more time.

But what I'm really heartbroken over all this.

It's going to be horrible on the whole neighborhood, any sun, all of that.

But what I'm heartbroken over is the lack of transparency.

This bill came up before SB 79 was finalized.

When I saw SB 79, I was shocked to find out that the height that they were calling for for the transit corridors was basically 65 feet, with a rare time that it would be 85.

And here we are, 140 to 500.

And yet, when planning puts out its bulletin, I just got a new one, they keep telling the public that we're having no impact.

It's very slight.

They really describe kind of the SB 79 kind of approach.

So this is not something that people say has to be just because we have a bus going up our street.

And SB 79 informs the way that I'm not saying it's a perfect bill, but when it comes to the transit corridor,

the entire state has looked at what is the appropriate height when you're trying to get a neighborhood.

The maximum of eight stories.

We don't want to have 10 years of construction with high-rises, with steel,

and also nothing has been in all that 500 pages of material.

I don't see anything about what we're going to do.

At 85 feet, does it have to be steel?

You know, all that stuff.

I couldn't find it, and I put it through SB.

I put it through Chad GPT.

They couldn't find it either.

please at least be transparent about what's really going on so that the public could understand

that in fact this is higher, much higher than anything that was even proposed by the boogeyman

at the state and maybe we could have a mix and match situation that was a little bit more helpful.

Thank you.

Okay, last call for public comment.

Come on up, sir.

Speak into the microphone, please.

Into the microphone, please.

My major concern about the planning is that there are going to be very high buildings along Van Ness and the side streets also,

going 100 feet, 200 feet, and will leave the smaller buildings in total darkness.

The Human Rights Commission has complained about the El Salvadorian prisons because they stopped the prisoners from getting natural sunlight, which leads to people having physical problems as well as emotional problems.

What you are doing here with the height of these buildings is turning Van Ness and the surrounding areas into a hellscape of darkness and depression, which will show up in the people just as it does in other areas where you have people with no light and too much density.

Like, I don't want to be overly dramatic, but like rats.

There are going to be rats shoveling through the dark nights of San Francisco.

And the rats are not going to be rats, although there will be rats.

But they will be the people who are caused to be depressed, unhappy, and unhealthy

because of the lack of light along this area if they actually want to live where they live.

And the people who live here, many of them have lived here for many years.

and they're elderly, and they need the light for a little bit of happiness,

a little bit of health, and a little bit of sight.

So I would suggest that the height is the biggest problem of this plan.

The height that was the type of height that they had in the Pink Lady,

which was a building built by the federal government to house the poor.

And it was down by Fillmore and was a huge, tall building.

And after about 20 years or 30 years, they ripped it down because nobody could live there.

It was too dense, too dark, and too unhealthy.

Thank you very much.

Okay, final last call for public comment.

Seeing none, public comment is closed.

This matter is now before you, commissioners.

Commissioner O'Brien?

Yes.

I just want to start by saying, you know, in response to some of the public comments,

that what we're hearing today is related to the family zoning plan,

but this commission already heard and approved the plan previously.

So I just want to make sure that's clear because probably the scope of our conversation

is going to be a little bit narrower today.

And the plan itself, the broader plan is before the board of supervisors at this point.

and and so um i do hope you continue to follow and provide input at the board as well um so having

said that uh i guess i have i have a few questions um as staff noted it's a little complicated and

then there are some some changes that just came through so i'm doing my best to kind of um to

think some of this through uh so first of all i guess i have a question about something that maybe

has now been addressed through the staff modifications but um you know i'm really happy

to see that the supervisor's office has agreement on referring to historic buildings and the current

planning code definition instead i think it's a much clearer way of doing this and you know i'm

I'm not even going to ask my question,

because my question was about what was meant

by potentially eligible, which seemed like a very confusing

phrase in the old legislation.

But yeah.

I can address this.

So part of what we have in the world

of historic preservation and evaluating

historical resources is when you make a determination

as part of what regulation and in what space.

So, for example, there are staff determinations that planning will make as part of the CEQA

process that basically assigns a status to a building.

There are other times that a resource or a building goes through a formal state process

or local process, like for example, through the HPC or through the State Historic Resources

Commission or even up to the keeper of the register.

The state basically has various codes for how you basically ascribe that status to a

building.

So the term historic resource largely means, you know, are you eligible for a historical

register either at the local level, state level, or national level?

And then you can obviously have significance within that.

And so we have a lot of kind of gradations of historic from designated landmarks towards

things that we know that are just historic because they went through a

CEQA process. And so that's basically what that's kind of hitting at. And so we

were looking, for example, at historic context statements as one of the avenues

for defining something as historic. But at issue is that our historic context

statements are really creating evaluative frameworks for our staff to

conduct the analysis. They don't actually make a determination on a particular

site. They are framing out why something is important relative towards like a certain aspect

of history. And so they'll list buildings, for example, within it, but not actually make a

determination on whether something's historic. Did I get that? Yes, that is helpful. And I'm curious,

you know, if the legislation were to move forward with the term potentially eligible

for designation, which I don't think it sounds like it's not.

But I'm curious, I mean, does that have a formal meaning

or is this a better switch now?

I will say this.

Our recommended solution is much more clear

and our data is better organized in the way that is currently suggested.

So we have a very clear idea of what is a historic building

within San Francisco versus what is potentially eligible,

which is a little squishy in that space.

I agree.

Okay, thank you for helping to clarify that,

and I'll probably need a lot of clarification.

So, you know, there's the one, Lisa Chen,

you were bringing up the examples of adaptive reuse projects

that involved lot mergers.

What I guess I'm not, I could just use like a case study or two

sort of of under this legislation, if you have an adaptive reuse project that is, let's say it's

off the top of my head, a funeral home with the adjacent lot that's the surface parking lot,

and the funeral home is a historic property, and there's an opportunity for adaptive reuse

and a housing project. What, under this legislation, would that lot merger be prohibited,

or what sort of the way this would play out?

So the language, and we have it too if we wanted to refer to it,

it is quite clear in many respects.

It basically says you can't, lot murders are not permitted

on the historic resources described in the legislation

unless the project maintains the historic resource in compliance

with the preservation design standards for the life of the project.

and then it has kind of some other conditions around NSRs and such.

So it really is just meeting the preservation design standards

and then there's no additional hearing or any other requirement in that regard.

Okay, thank you.

That's actually very helpful because for me,

I realize that we're still kind of testing out the preservation design standards,

so I do definitely support the department's recommendation

that we kind of look back at those and make sure they're working

as they start getting used.

But knowing that a project can still move forward as long as they are meeting the preservation design standards makes me much more comfortable with legislation.

And I'm just going to pause my comments there right now.

I'm kind of not trying to take a position on recommendations at the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner McGarry.

I'd just like to acknowledge everybody that has been involved in this.

There's been people who have been yes from the start.

There's been people who have been vehemently no from the start.

There's been people like the supervisor's office who are attempting to bring some compromise.

The supervisors all brought a lot to the table.

And then the planning department who have to put all that together.

And you've done a phenomenal job for that.

I also have to acknowledge Paul's comment there.

before he left.

The city's in a terrible spot here,

and everybody needs to know,

and I don't think we've done a good job of messaging

the alternative SB 79 and the builder's remedy.

They're just unacceptable when you look at them.

So it's either take control or lose control,

and the city, planning department, historic department,

and everybody has basically created,

brought to the process their input,

and I think we're in a phenomenal, Lisa, your department,

what you've done, phenomenal work.

And I'm surprised you didn't lose people, Rachel, along the way

because a lot of departments just wouldn't be able to survive it

or wouldn't just walk away from it.

So I just want to acknowledge and accommodate any way I can

my appreciation for everything you've done along the way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Imperial.

Thank you. I have questions on the first on how we're tackling this. I was reading on the, you know, during the family zoning plan deliberations a couple of months ago in terms of the historic preservation comments.

and one of their recommendations is to prioritize or in a way prioritize the SF survey in the family zoning plan.

And it looks like the what's, can you elaborate more on how it's being prioritized right now?

And maybe I'll ask if Mr. Sucre and Ms. Chen can speak both to the incentives in the family zoning plan

but also our work that we're doing in accelerating and expanding our preservation team.

Yeah. Hi, commissioners, Ritz-Soucray, department staff. So yes, one of the kind of, I guess, on my end, best things that has come out of the family zoning plan is a firm commitment, both from our new director as well as from the mayor's office to help complete SF survey and also make sure that we both have resources and budget and staffing to make sure we get it done on time and basically expedite it.

on the similar path as part of the family zoning plan we created a landmarking program

basically specific for moving more buildings through our article 10 process that included

coming up with a faster way to create our designation reports providing for some

recommendations on how we make landmarks faster and then basically also going out to each of

the supervisors districts to try and basically figure out what do we already know in terms of

what is historic in your districts what what is eligible for our landmarking program so while we

are planning for growth um you know through a lot of our neighborhoods we're also trying to recognize

those important sites and buildings that are really emblematic of you know who we are as

San Franciscans and who best represent the neighborhoods itself. So there's been a great

commitment especially to historic preservation within this realm. I think the family zoning plan

also provides for some carve outs specific for historic preservation. I think Supervisor

Mandelman's amendments recently have removed the landmarking from the rezoning and increases in

heights throughout the family our local landmarks in article 10 are not subject to our local program

basically for use for the ones that are kind of regular historic for a lack of a better word

they are able to take advantage of adaptive reuse incentives that we've included in the local

program to basically help incentivize keeping existing historic buildings and then allowing

you to kind of shift that development

density into other parts.

So, you know, I think this is one

of the kind of nicest things

that have come out of the plan, at least from

my end as the manager of our historic

preservation team, is that we've seen this kind of

balancing of between

growth and then making sure that we understand

the kind of

best parts of San Francisco.

Yeah, and thank you, Mr. Socorro.

I think that also leads me

to my another question in terms

of the recommendation number two.

And I understand that building that capacity

and it seems like the way I see it,

we're kind of like which moves first.

And it's really a matter of time

that I feel like I'm worried about honestly.

And so in the recommendation number two,

the preservation design standards,

and it's being recommended that the local program

shall prevail. Why is that?

Yes, thank you, Commissioner. So if you recall

from our prior hearings, we crafted those local program incentives

pretty deliberately, right? The intention really is to

I think we call it flexibility, but with guardrails, right?

We're trying to create targeted areas where we're offering a little bit more flexibility

than our current code and standards allow.

There are other parts of the local program

that allow incentives from our citywide design standards as well,

not just the preservation design standards.

But really incentivize them to basically adhere to our local rules

and maintain that local control

instead of seeing more projects using the state density bonus

where they would not need to meet the lot merger prohibition.

They also wouldn't necessarily need to meet the preservation design standards.

So that's really the framework.

And you all actually recommended amendments to the incentives that allow flexibility from the preservation design standards.

If you recall, we added a unit mix recommendation that would allow a little bit of flexibility with the front setback, for example,

on top of historic buildings going from 15 feet to 10 feet, which is, you know, it's only 5 feet, but that can be meaningful for projects.

I recall a few months ago there was a project on mission near Bernal Hill with affordable housing where they were going more than less than 15 feet into their setback, right?

So the idea is to allow a little bit of that flexibility through the local program and to be clear that when those two are in conflict, it is the code that prevails over the design standards.

Structurally, that's already what happens.

That's what the city attorney has advised us.

When there is a conflict between the code and our standards, it is the code provision that prevails.

But we think that adding this clarity will just make that more obvious.

So the question doesn't necessarily get raised by sponsors or by our staff, et cetera.

So the local program can provide more flexibility, and the preservation design standard also includes that flexibility?

So what's the, wait, I'm trying to.

The standards are a yes or no, right?

And that's because they're meant to be objective, right?

That's kind of the standard that you can just apply it without any discretion, right?

But what we did through the local program is that we said in a variety of areas, you can have, you know, basically not flexibility, but it's like a modified standard, right?

So we said that your rear yard can go from, you know, 25 to 18%, for example.

Or, you know, you can meet different exposure requirements.

So that's what we did. It's not flexible like a waiver, like it is under state density bonus where you can propose something.

It is just a different number, essentially.

Okay, so there is some standard, modified standard.

For Supervisor Mandelman, you mentioned earlier that you're non-supportive of this recommendation.

Yeah, so we're partially not supportive of this modification

because, unfortunately, President Mailman

is out of the country right now,

and so we actually haven't had enough time

to sit down and talk to planning staff

about the reasoning behind the modification.

So there is a chance, perhaps, after he returns,

we can have a meeting to discuss this in more detail

and be actually supportive of the modification.

But as of right now, we're not supportive.

I see.

And what do you envision,

or what does your office envision in terms of the...

I guess it's got to be more a conversation in terms of the lot merger and preservation design standard on this.

Sorry, can you repeat the question?

What do you envision?

Because there's going to be, I can see that there's going to be, you know,

evaluation of preservation design standard at some point in the future.

Do you also anticipate to be part of that conversation regarding the lot merger?

Yes, we can be.

Okay. And so as of now, nothing specific yet is just let's see what's going to work out.

Okay. Thank you. For me, I'm very much leaning into the original ordinance by supervisor

And I do understand where the department is coming from in this.

It's because it's the, you know, the fact that it's being interpreted as putting constraints on the developments.

And perhaps, and I see how the department's taking this is to encourage to use the local programs

where we have more control and in a way incentivize the state program.

or using of any state programs.

And, you know, the way I see it is we're always trying to move around

or navigate around on what the state would do.

And what we're, but instead of, like, really looking into the preservation,

you know, the preservation aspect of historical resources.

the other things too

is that

I really want

us, the department

to really focus on

prioritizing the SF survey

I wish that

I would rather have that

the preservation survey

again for me

it's like we're running out of time on this

and that's where

I'm kind of like leaning on for the department to focus really on the when

we're talking about preservation

instead of maneuvering around the state density

programs. But yeah, I mean

I know there will be future conversation preservation standards

and I'm interested to hear more and what would

supervisor Mandelman's take on that as well. Thank you.

And Director Tanner, you have a comment?

I just wanted to respond to Commissioner Imperials, your question, or one of your comments,

which is certainly, you know, you can have your noting concern about, you know, having the survey move in parallel to the rezoning.

Well, what if, you know, we lose some resources in the interim?

And I think that's what President Mandelman is concerned about, right?

I think what Mr. Seagray did not share is, you know, we have a fast track of two years to complete the survey.

So that's why we have been adding more resources, human resources to that team and a plan that's in place.

that really, again, goes and looks at our most vulnerable places where we think we'll see

development first, such as our corridors, buildings that don't have housing associated

with them, so they wouldn't have protections from demolition from those types of laws. And we're

triaging going district by district, and not just the corridors, but also looking at commercial

or historic districts as well, all of our great survey work and context statements using those

as the springboard. So we're really on an accelerated timeline. It's certainly, we hope

some ways development uh get started sooner but we we are really focused that next year and the

year after and we've already been doing a lot of work this year in district 8 and others to get

those those buildings landmarked thank you um commissioner campbell thank you um i am appreciating

staff's recommended modifications i think my concern with every amendment we've seen come

out since September 11th when we voted on the family zoning plan is that they present potential

roadblocks and deterrents to achieving the goals of the family zoning plan. So I guess what I

would like to understand is, maybe this is just taking a step back, is what the, this seems very

specific around lot mergers. And I guess I would like to just understand what, and I don't know who

can answer this, but like what the fear of lot mergers specifically are. Yeah, so I believe

President Madelman's concern is it's mostly just related to the potential ministerial demolition

of historic resources. And so after meeting with different preservationists, one of the

recommendations was to include an amendment that referred to lot mergers specifically.

So this recommendation is rooted in community and less so directly from President Madelman.

oh sorry yes so yes this recommendation came from preservationists they are concerned that

through merger projects that we might be losing these specific resources so this is in tandem with

the other amendment that was made at land use on monday that would remove the all current landmarks

from the rezoning plan and is there is that because there's data from other cities that when

we see upzoning in neighborhoods or cities that lot mergers is something that happens

more frequently?

I guess I'm just trying to understand why we're so focused on...

I understand the concern around historic resources and wanting to make sure we're protecting

them, but just...

I'll say when we look at our past precedent, for example, with the up rezoning in Central

Soma and eastern neighborhoods, we saw about 20% loss for the Category A's overall. And obviously,

any kind of number way of aggregating lots and kind of looking at different compositions of

sites were used to kind of help fulfill those plans. So that was kind of the kind of baseline

that I think we've used in looking at all of this. I see. Okay. So given that we have a lot

of protections and preservation design standards and the local program.

There's a lot in place, and I guess I'm wondering

with these proposed amendments, once we apply the recommended modifications

from staff, what kind of scenario are we addressing

at the end of the day?

So I think what Rich's comments really spoke to is

not necessarily the landmarks that we're worried about. Those are kind of absolutely

protected, right? I think it's the eligible resources that people have more concerns about,

where, you know, there maybe are some state laws that, you know, allow demolition or, you know,

other uses on the site. So under this lot merger based, this amendment, essentially, you can only

get the lot merger if you preserve the resource and you meet our preservation design standards.

Well, I've got you. One last question. Because what I'm hearing is not total alignment here with the staff's recommended modifications. And I'm curious if everything on the table is what encompasses the conversation. I think you mentioned that there will be continued dialogue. So is there anything else that, because I know this is kind of all late breaking. So is there anything else that we're aware of?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we are very close to having a consensus.

It is really just these questions that have come up as we've thought through the implementation.

You know, like, you know, what if there is a conflict between these two, you know, the standards and the code, right, for example?

And we know that each of those is going to continue to evolve in the future, right?

We wanted to basically make sure that this is as clear as possible for implementation.

And so I think that's where we're just working through those details together.

Okay, thank you.

Those are all my comments and questions.

Thank you, Commissioner Campbell.

And Commissioner Braun?

Yes, I have two more questions.

So one is to Calvin Ho.

So you said that the supervisor is not supportive of,

now the one we haven't talked about, the third staff recommend modification,

clarifying that the lot merger prohibition

shall only apply to housing development projects.

Right now the legislation I believe covers any property

with an historic building on it.

um and i'm curious this is coming forward as part of the kind of housing focused rezoning

and so what's sort of the the thinking behind uh covering um commercial projects as well you know

it sounds it sounds like this would apply to a commercial development project that involves

a historic resource you wouldn't be able to do a lot of merger for those either unless it met these

these new criteria yeah so um i believe that we are supportive of the idea behind the

modification i think there is just a question around uh the reference to housing developments

pursuant to certain parts of california state code so i think once we have clarity around

which portion of the code that we're referring to then our office will be supportive of the

modification but we present moment is supportive of the concept for item three okay so but part of

of the intention of prohibiting lot mergers was to cover projects that are not housing projects

as well our intention is to just cover housing projects okay yes yes okay all right thank you

um and then uh i my second question is to maybe to staff i'm curious about so lisa you mentioned that

um with the second recommendation about having the local program prevail when there is an

inconsistency between the preservation design standards and the local program.

You know, one concern it raises for me was sticking with the preservation design standards

in that instance is, I think, something you were saying maybe, or maybe it was Rich, about

that there's greater flexibility, a little bit more flexibility in the local program.

Did I hear that right? Is that the perspective from staff?

It's not that there's more flexibility. It's that there's different standards, right?

And the way that they're phrased in the code is these are modified standards that are applicable to the local program, right?

So that's where the potential conflicts lie, right?

Because to use the previous example, you all recommended, and then it was amended into the ordinance that there is a unit mix incentive where instead of 15 feet for your upper story setback, that can now be reduced to 10 feet.

So that is something that through the policy process, it was decided that this was a reasonable incentive to get people to use the program.

But now it's in conflict with this lot merger restriction, right?

I see.

And so I guess what I'm trying to make sure that we're avoiding is adding a constraint to housing development.

and

I don't feel like

we are adding a constraint if we

defer to the preservation design standards

versus the local program

but that's why I wanted

to explore this a little bit more. Yeah, maybe I'll try

just a different tack. It's saying the same thing

so it may not do any better.

I think if you look at

you have I think this handout with the blue

bright thing highlight on

if you look at, it's page 171

but it's the first page and you look at

line 21. It says, you know, 20 and 21, mergers are not permitted on lots described in this subsection

unless the project maintains the historic resource in compliance with the preservation design

standards for the life of the project. Well, that sounds great, but there are a few instances,

and I want to stress there are a few, and Lisa is saying basically one of the two that we know of,

which is the preservation design standard says you have to have your front edition setback 15 feet.

The local program says it can be 10 feet.

We want to clarify that under how we would have the hierarchy of the code and the standards live, the code would prevail.

And the local program is in the code, and so that would be 10 feet instead of 15.

So then you have to say, well, then is that project in compliance with the preservation design standards,

or is it not in compliance with the preservation design standards because it's –

so this is – again, it's a very minute thing.

We may have overthought it, but that's how much we think about the family zoning plan and all these amendments.

and we look at them late in the night and we think of all the things that we need to fix.

So that is a minute thing, and I think to Calvin's point,

we want to make sure the supervisor has a chance to understand all of this.

And I think to provide some color just in terms of when we were working on the preservation design standards,

remember, again, the challenge on our end was to create a very absolute objective,

yes or no, black or white standard for how we do, for example, vertical additions to historic resources.

In every other instance and in terms of practice, we work with a sponsor, we look at viewpoints,

we basically try and do what is best for the resource, but that also helps to achieve a goal.

So it's hard to basically create an absolute number. We came up with 15 feet because that's,

for example, our standard practice. I even think Commissioner Campbell questioned the use of the

15 feet when in other instances we have a lot of great projects that use 10 feet, that use 12 feet,

But the problem we have is that the standards need to apply to all historic resources.

So we basically kind of started with a number to just make sure that we have something that we can then kind of launch off from.

And then as we run through those examples, we would bring back the standards for your consideration and the HBC's consideration to see if there is flex that needs to be happening within that context.

So I think the example that we're using as the conflicts between the two, that just gives a little color in terms of why we're kind of at this moment and where we are.

Okay, thank you.

You know, I think that the staff recommended modifications in this case are practical, sort of implementation-oriented types of recommendations.

I understand that there might still need to be a further process to determine whether those are exactly the right, you know, metrics.

But I'm comfortable moving this forward with the staff recommended modifications,

if only to make sure that those are being taken up and considered if the legislation sort of evolves a little bit further.

You know, because I think I understand it's really important to have clarity on local program versus preservation design standards.

it's really important to have clarity on what we're talking about when it comes to a housing development project,

which, as has been said, is the focus of this legislation.

And so I think these are just practical implementation types of recommendations.

And so I move to recommend approval of legislation, but with the staff recommended modifications.

Thank you, Commissioner Braun.

Well, first of all, I really appreciate Commissioner Brown's really thorough thought process of this.

I'm actually in alignment with you, and I would like to second his motion.

But then I also have a few questions here, more so on try to get everybody, the public,

to understand all these really hard-to-understand back and forth.

We wanted to be more transparent to have our San Franciscans to understand how the process on any given project go through planning department and building department ultimately get a permit, no matter how small it is or how big it is.

So ultimately, I think this, what we worked so hard, our team, Lisa, Josh, Rich Sucre, Rachel, and Sarah worked so hard together closely with also Supervisor Mendelman's office and Calvin.

I'm pretty sure you guys had not slept for many days and months and Rihanna too.

is really is trying to make sure that our people at San Franciscan really understand

or have less fear of what will be in the future and how they live.

What it comes down to is when we talk about all of this,

how does it impact the timeline to get any permit?

Does it do anything to it or make it throw a project back to two more years?

or sure commissioner i can address that so when it comes to housing projects now based on new state

law we are mandated to complete the review and both the approval of projects within a certain

time frame so at least for in the realm of housing we are certainly in compliance with state law

we have a review timeline for marking applications complete we have a review timeline for basically

issuing our first notice and then we also have a review timeline for scheduling projects once the

environmental determination has been complete so in terms of impact on the timeline and or review

of a project it should not have an impact on that this would be for example one of the eligibility

criteria that we use in screening for projects so that has been an important component both in

in state law and in local law in terms of the review of housing projects.

I think that just to add to that, I think that's what's a great part of this proposal is that there's a solution, right?

Because we have the preservation design standards, this prohibition has a very clear, straightforward, objective way for folks to not be subject to the prohibition.

So we think it is a good match of kind of having a solution ready for folks who want to advance those projects.

It was more pretty much black and white.

Everyone can actually look at one guideline, which is what we painstakingly review back in September.

Yes.

Our objective design guideline center, we can all point to the same document instead of based on feelings.

Exactly.

That's great.

And also that transparency aligning with our permit center and streamlining process will continue to provide more transparency, reliable turnaround time for the review of any expectations of our project.

That's great.

One last thing I wanted to hear is that what are our colleagues in the Historic Preservation Commission's hearing from yesterday about this?

Sure.

In this particular instance, the HBC isn't afforded an opportunity to review the amendment,

but we did inform them that President Mandeman was introducing both this amendment

as well as the other amendments related to landmarking,

and so there generally seemed positive affirmation, basically, of it.

Okay, thank you.

That concludes my comment, and Commissioner Moore?

I acknowledge the tremendous work and trying on this particular subject matter that has

gone into it and the rapid speed by which it is moving forward and pretty much changing.

I find that process difficult and confusing.

because I believe that the planning part itself is ahead of the tools of how to properly implement it.

It's kind of like having designed a car and still not knowing how to drive it,

and that's of great concern to me.

I would like to ask perhaps Mr. Sukwe that, for example,

your recommendation, your modification under point four is actually more a reminder of

how you would practice.

That in itself does have little to do with modifying anything other than looking at how

am I doing it.

That is what I call how to drive the car.

And I'm not critical of that, but I don't consider it a modification to the rules themselves.

What is indeed difficult for me is that Mr. Ho still says that the legislator, that is Supervisor Mandelman, still is not fully supportive of two and three.

And like in many other pieces of legislation, aside from what we're doing here under the family zoning plan, I always wait for the supervisor, the legislator, him or herself, to see eye to eye with planning in order that what we're moving forward really arises from the experience and the deeper soul-searching that our legislator are bringing to the equation.

And it's for that reason that I am hesitant not standing fully in support of what's in front of us, including the modifications, but I'm still seeing there are certain things that need to be clarified and in place for me before I will say yes.

I would like to ask, I recall that Supervisor Chan had a number of preservation suggestions

that all of a sudden, without them being anywhere addressed as part of the communication, where

are they?

Have they disappeared?

supervisor, Malgar determined that they will not be considered any further because it's

in that dialogue that she promised us to pursue that everybody who is talking and thinking

about preservation at the Board of Supervisors would really work with each other to come

forward with a unified way of looking at the issue.

And in this particular case, I do not see her concerns still being on the table or anywhere

addressed in what's here in front of us.

Sure, Supervisor.

And I may actually, we had a slide that just shows the different ordinances, so I might

just return to that just for a visual cue.

One moment.

Thank you.

If we can get the slides as well.

Thank you.

There we go.

All right. So as we noted at the start of the presentation, in terms of kind of just the general housekeeping of how the land use hearings have occurred, there's been kind of the original ordinance, the file that all of you heard, and then there's been these two duplicates.

The Mandelman, Supervisor Mandelman Amendment was put into its own file specifically because it needed re-referral to this commission.

Everything else was put into this third ordinance, which is the second duplicate.

And so over the past three hearings at the Land Use Committee, essentially, you know, it wasn't a unilateral decision by Board Chair Melgar.

It was through the actions of the committee.

They took votes on which amendments to move into the original file.

The intention is that that is the file that will be considered at the board.

And the rationale for that was, as she noted, it wasn't necessarily to quibble on the merits of each one or the actual topic at hand.

She was very clear that items that get moved into that file should still be consistent and compliant with state law.

And so at our previous hearings, what we've been doing is actually going through amendment by amendment and having a discussion of not only the policy content itself, but also is this something that could bring us out of compliance with state law?

As you recall, HTD did issue a letter in early September stating that the proposal that they saw, which was pretty much the same proposal that you all voted on, was compliant with state law and that we needed to be careful about future changes and that if there are changes that bring densities down or heights down or add significant constraints, we need to think about how we offset those changes.

And so that's been part of just the overall process,

is making sure that the ordinance that gets forward to the board

is something that can still meet state law.

And we believe that that is the case.

So you're saying, if I may interrupt, because there's a lot being said,

file one, which contains a supervisor mandelman's file,

is moving towards the board depending on what this commission decides.

Or support, I mean.

and modify file number two because there was no support at land use for it has basically disappeared.

Well, it is being tabled.

What does table mean?

So essentially it's kind of like that's where it ends.

But if somebody wanted to bring back any of the policies, the amendments at the full board,

they were considered at land use, right?

So it doesn't mean those policy ideas are gone, right?

It just means that procedurally they're not in the ordinance that will be considered on December 2nd.

What is interesting to me, and I'm really not an expert in how file 1, file 2, etc. work,

I hear that file 2 has been vetted with HED or land use has determined that there are too many constraints

or too many unintentional unit reductions for that to be able not to be tabled.

Sorry, if you could restate the question.

Since file two did not move forward, there has been a preliminary evaluation

that HCD would not recognize or accept these kinds of modifications

as suggested by Supervisor Chen.

they could not come forward because of either numbers are being reduced or other constraints of development are implied.

I think that's true in some cases.

Essentially, what's in that third file are items that did not get voted on,

that did not have the committee approval to be moved into the first file, right?

So that could be because we provided guidance that some of them may not be compliant with state law.

It could be for other reasons.

You know, there wasn't consensus, for example.

So, you know, there's a range of amendments.

They have different impacts.

We did, you know, go through them all, and we did advise, you know,

which ones raised more concerns about compliance with law, state law.

And Rachel and Sarah, you might want to chime in.

Yeah, I was just going to say I think your summary, Vice President Moore,

kind of, you know, the really two main dynamics,

which is that it reduces the number of housing units that can be built

under the family zoning plan to a level that's too low.

and so that would be one thing, that would be capacity.

The other is the constraint.

Is it affecting the timing, the predictability,

the ability of a project to achieve its maximum density?

Is it affecting the feasibility or capacity of projects?

And so that's a little squishier, a little more qualitative and quantitative at times,

but that's also, as Ms. Chen was saying, where we provided guidance.

I think maybe just to pick up on another point that you raised,

and I think this hopefully present from this hearing,

is that we are working as collaboratively with President Mandelman,

office on this item to really have it be evolved over the last, what was it, month, I think,

that we've been working on this. And so we really are really grateful for that. I think, as you know,

Vice President Moore, you've noted many times, this goes forward with your all blessing to the

Land Use Committee to have further discussion. And so we are confident that in the intervening time,

we can continue to massage these ideas, but at least they've been brought forward here for

discussion, for your consideration. And then the Land Use Committee has the opportunity to also

consider those ideas as well.

And so we do look forward to continuing that dialogue.

Ms. Tanner, what still is a mystery for me is where does working with HCD come in that

we, the first time around we hear it, are better informed to not support something which

does not have a chance to move forward either?

Right.

You wouldn't want to support that.

Are you working with HCD?

Are the supervisors working with HCD?

has HCD ever come and presented to anybody

or were present in any of these meetings.

I find myself kind of not able to understand the process

because the deciding factor is HCD basically being

comfortable with what you're doing or saying no.

And we're basically on the outside of understanding that.

We're trying to do what we believe is correct for the city,

but we do not have any direct guidance of what the triggers are.

Commissioner Moore, maybe just to close on that,

I think with regard to the item before you today,

we have determined that the proposed amendment does not have impact,

and we've discussed this with HCD.

We have regular weekly calls on the capacity and the metric

to what they are going to be holding us.

That is why we are recommending approval today.

On the bucket of other amendments that you noted,

those are active conversations unfortunately those are not before you

those are before the land use committee at this point in time and maybe just

for your your state commissioner but also for others here and also people who

are listening you may recall before the before the September 11 hearing here we

got a letter from HCD so it was fairly clear in their guidance which is like if

you add constraints we would like you to reduce constraints and if you reduce

capacity somewhere you need to make sure you keep your capacity whole so those

Those have been the two biggest, I think, overall directives that we have that we've

been trying to adhere to and kind of use that guidance so that when we submit our final

adopted plan to them for review that they would find it similarly as they did earlier

this year that it is in compliance with state law.

For me, it is ultimately a question of process where there is an element of gray where the

decisions being made, the matrix of which I do not understand.

And that has makes it difficult for me to sit here and support and support and say,

why are we not being informed to collectively move something forward which we all can agree

to and accept in whatever difficulties we may have fully understanding it.

So that's my point.

Thank you.

It is a very confusing evolution of a lot of things.

I do admit it's really confusing.

And thank you for these comments because also thank you for clarifying the processes with the flow chart

and also reiterating and reemphasizing where we are at here today for.

It is really confusing for not just one or two people but for quite some people.

and I'm pretty clear

of what we're doing today though

and I wanted to

hear more. Commissioner Braun have further

comments and then we can ready

for a vote.

Something that Vice President

Moore said makes me want to

adjust my

motion

so I want to clarify that we're

making the motion to adopt a recommendation

for approval with staff

modifications which are really just

the first three modifications.

I said four, but the fourth is just the recommendation generally that staff

revisit the preservation design standards in the future to examine

their implementation.

So as seconder, President, so that's the one change I would make,

that it's to adopt a recommendation to support the legislation

with the three staff recommended modifications.

Very good, Commissioners.

If there's nothing further, there is a motion that has been seconded

to adopt a recommendation for approval with staff modifications.

On that motion, Commissioner Campbell?

Aye.

Commissioner McGarry?

Aye.

Commissioner Braun?

Aye.

Commissioner Imperial?

No.

Commissioner Moore?

No.

And Commissioner President Soe?

Aye.

So move, Commissioners, that motion passes 4-2 with Commissioners Imperial and Moore voting against.

That concludes your hearing today, Commissioners,

and you all get a break for Thanksgiving next week.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Meeting adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.