Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Land Use Committee 20240713

To the next hearing and see if we can agenized that. I appreciate all claudia and rick and regina for you participating today. Im sure you have a million things going on and same with you shelly, were appreciating your spending the time so can you get us an update. It takes time to prepare and its not as easy for you to just jump in a meeting and talk about things. We appreciate your time. We would like the conversation to continue so maybe we can take this off line and figure out how to agenda. If i may, i think this direction is fairly clear and we can simply add an action item that would be quick since most of the bullet points have already been vetted during this informational presentation and a draft can be circulated ahead of that hearing for commissioner review and allow for Public Comment on any of those Public Matters that would be incorporate inside that letter. We would agenized that malt matter on may 20th if we receive authorization from the Mayors Office to proceed with another remote hearing. Otherwise we have to wait until the next time were able to convene. That would be wonderful. If possible, if there is anyway to do the scan of any of the current businesses and the ones in the cue and those in the applications that are compromised at the moment. We can include that then. I dont know if we can get that information by may 20th. That would be wonderful. Staff has heard that request from the commission. Great. All right. I think we already took Public Comment on this. Are there any other comments from the commissioners . Can i jump in for a second. I just wanted to comment on as of monday, all construction is allowed. Before that, it was only for essential businesses. An essential project. The project is considered essential. So in the same way, could the Small Business administration look at legacy businesses because now attempts are considering non essential business and all projects at this point so in the same vein, could the s. B. A. Or Small Business office look at all legacy Business Applications now . Just in peril. Great. Do you have a comment . I just wanted to clarify about the pause i mentioned. That pause was just taken by Small Business staff to address the grant applications so that is over now. That was between february and march. The concerns the Small Business commissions activities and whether or not they can hold a hearing. I understand that the Mayors Office decision, the mayors decision that they have to seek authorization to hold their hearings and theyre not authorized by the mayor to hear legacy businesses. So, im not sure how much agency they have and making that decision to what to agenized or when to hold hearings. By the time you write a letter that would be listed. You wanted to comment . Was that districted to me . Yes, just that i wanted to say consistent with what shelly said, each commissions authority to hold hearings is governed by the states emergency orders as well as the mayors emergency proclamations and authorizations so that is correct. The Small Business commission and every other commission depends on mayors authorization. All right, with that, i just wanted to thank staff again for keeping this very Important Program moving and taking the time to give us an update today. I dont think we have any other comments and thats our last item. So. A very smooth meeting [laughter] so thank you, everyone. Stay well and were adjourned. See yall soon. Thank you. Byebye. Good afternoon, and welcome to the land use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board o board of supervisors. I am aaron peskin joined by supervisor safai and on my left by member dean preston. Our clerk is ms. Erica major. Do you have announcements . Yes due to the Health Emergency City Employees and the public the board of Supervisors Chamber and Committee Room are closed. However, members will be participating in the meeting remotely at the same extent as if physically present. Public comment is available for each item on the agenda both channel 26 and sfgovtv are streaming the number across the screen. Each speaker is allowed two minutes. Comments to speak during the Public Comment are available by calling 8882045984. The access code is 3501008. Then press pound and plowed again. When you are connected dial 1 and zero to speak. You will beelined up in the order you dialed. The system will be silent when you are waiting. They will notify you when you are in line. Callers will remain on mute. Account for time delays between live coverage and streaming. Best practices call from a quiet location and turndown your television or radio. You may submit comment in the following ways. Email me. If you submit via email it will be included as part of the matter. Written comments may be centuryithroughcity hall. Thank you. As i have done for a couple months i would like to thank the behindthescenes staff making this Virtual Meeting happen. Thank you john, arthur, brent, john carroll as well as the folk at sfgovtv. With that, madam clerk, would you please read item two out of order. An ordinance amending the planning code to provide that in the urban mixed use district all office uses are prohibited except that a professional service, Financial Service or medical service is allowed as conditional use on the ground floor when primary open to the general public on a client oriented basesis. Call 8882045984 and bles prese and zero to speak. If you are on hold, standby. My understanding is that the sponsor of this legislation, supervisor ronen who is trying to call me and i am trying to call her back would like to have this item continued. I see that her legislative aid is participating in this meeti meeting. Ms. Binart is my understanding correct . You are welcome to speak before this committee. Amy, come in. Amy binart. Thank you very much for accommodating our request to continue. We would like to request the same one more week. We would like to hear this on may 11th. With that, i would just defer to your actions. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to item number 2 that is sponsor has requested a one week continuance on . Madam clerk. I think you might be on mute, madam clerk. I cant hear you. I have two callers. I will call the first caller. You have two questions remaining. You have two minutes to speak starting now. I would like to remind callers to turn down the tv. We are getting feedback from the television. Next caller. You have two questions remaining. Hello, you have two minutes to speak. I am calling in regards to item 2. It is insane you are going to make it harder to open job site offices in this current economic climate. Wwe are going through a terrible recession. We need every possible office space. Anybody trying to open an office needs to do that without conditional use hearing. Sorry i have a job or i am retired, and i dont care. It is the wrong set of priorities for the board. You shouldnt have to beg and plead with a bunch of over concerned people that my job, office cant be in this neighborhood. Any job now is valuable and we need to make that happen. Think about the workers in the offices. Think about the tax money to generate for the city and think about the revenue that other businesses in the area would get by having more workers in place. That has to be the number one priority going forward. Think about that instead of whether the neighborhood cares if a coffee shop is open. You have two questions remaining. I am garrett. I am a resident of San Francisco. I am calling in regards to item two. While i support to spirit of the proposed legislation to promote housing over office uses in district nine. I am concerned by lack of out reach to the handful of sponsors in district nine whose projects would be impacted, particularly the lack of grandfather the projects would receive should it pass a written. Given the extraordinary amount of time and money and project sponsors must obtainness approvements for the land use environment, it is utmost importance for consistency. I recommend that all project that were in the pipeline prior to the introduction of this legislation be granted grandfathering clauses. And that all future proposals are accompanied buy out reach to the sponsors whose projects may be affected. Thank you. Next caller. You have two minutes to speak. Hello, caller. That conpleats the queue. Thank you. Seeing no other members of the public, Public Comment is closed. Madam clerk, on the motion requested by the representative of supervisor ronen to continue one week to may 11th, a roll call, please. Motion to continue to may 11th. Supervisor preston. Aye. Safai yes. Aye. Peskin. Aye. You have three ayes. Can you please the first and last item. Ordinance to demolish a Single Family residential building on a site zoned as rh1 or rh1d when it is not affordable or financially accessible housing. Members of the public for this item call 8882045984. The access code is 3501008. Press one and then zero to line up to speak. For those on hold, please standby. Thank you, madam clerk. I want to thank and welcome supervisor mandelman, the author of this legislation. I am proud to be the soul cosponsor. This is an issue that has been kicking around for a long time, and as supervisor mandelman will remember, i believe supervisor safai will remember, supervisor preston was not on the board. I have a history of fixing infirmities in 317 of the planning code to prevent demolition of extent Affordable Housing and i rant to thank supervisor mandelman and his staff for bringing this forward. I believe supervisor mandelman has tweaks and i have tweaks based on the suggestions in both of our cases that came out of the Planning Commission hearing. The Planning Department is ably represented in the meeting so if we have any questions of the Planning Department, they are here. Of course, the recommendation of the commission are set forth in the package that is before this committee. With that i will turn it over to supervisor mandelman. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Thank you, chair peskin. Thank you for your leadership on demolition issues. For a long time the item before us today is an ordinance that i drew with supervisors cosponsor to close a loophole for Single Family homes that encourages speculative demolition of existing housing to be replaced by very large and more expensive and less affordable Single Family homes. Currently 317 of the planning code requires conditional use approval in most cases where the demolition is proposed. There is an exception. Some existing Single Family homes can be demolished if the value of the property, not the value of the home, is above a certain amount. Currently 2. 2 million. That is set by the Zoning Administrator and adjusted periodically. These are demonstrably unaffordable that is referring to the property and not the home. They are exempt from the conditional use requirement. When 317 was added in 2007, part of the original logic was the loss of expensive housing was less concern in terms of preserving existing units. The average sale price tripled and the value is on the development value. Speculators are willing to pay 2 or 3 million for a lot with a thousand square foot home not worth anything near that on its own because they know they can build a 5,000 square foot mansion and flip it for 5 or 6 million or 7 million or more. Bizarrely, this practice triggers a special exception to allow the old house to be demolished without any public review any other demolition would require. This is not about saving 2 million homes as some suggested. It is about stopping or stalling the 7 million mansions being built or giving those projects the same level every view as any other demolition. I also want to be clear that it is an exception only applies on property zoned for rh1 or 1d. Those are subject to fink el family zoning. It doesnt make good sense to get an expedited review when the demolition of the same home in the area for two, three, four or more units have to go through conditional use process. This is to level that Playing Field and ensure there is a chance to look at these sites and push for appropriate replacement be in terms of design, scale and density. Before i conclude i will describe the two amendments i ask to be considered today. A non substantive change for clarity we arrived at with the deputy City Attorney jensen who is here today. I want those amendments in front of this supervisor. I want to confirm with my colleagues on this panel, supervisor safai that what is before you as well, is that correct . Let me doublecheck. Usually i just hand one to my left and one to my right. I am sorry to interrupt. I have them. Supervisor preston. Yes, i have those as well. Sorry. Please proceed. This first change is simply to retain reference to the remaining exception related to unsound buildings in the list of exceptions in 317c. You will see at the bottom of page 2 in the current version of the ordinance that c5 is struck out. In the proposed amendment this language worry tained. Secondly, i would like to incorporate the grandfathering provision for projects in the pipeline prior to february 11th of this year. That would mean projects filed Development Application with planning prior to february 11 would continue under the existing review process. Those after that date are subject to the conditional use requirement. That is fair in this case. To make the change that i think we should make. In summary, colleagues, this would make a narrow amendment to eliminate the double standard favoring luxury mansions offer existing homes and new desert projects. As we continue to address the housing from multiple angles this will allow scrutiny and slow the loss of existing housing throughout the city. I ask for positive recommendation to close this loophole as soon as possible. Thank you for your consideration today. I want to thank chair peskin for the work done on the issue of demolition and the good ideas that were generated through our efforts around antidemolition last year. This is one of those good ideas. There are more. I want to thank jensen, jacob in my office and audrey and aaron star. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor mandelman. I dont see my colleagues with questions at this time. In so far as names are not on the roster, i thought that i would speak to the amendment that i would like to suggest at this meeting that i believe, and we can check with deputy City Attorney pearson, who is our Legal Council to this committee. I believe those two would require a one week continuance for additional Public Comment. This was actually discussed in the Planning Commissions hearing and in some part because of a piece of analysis that was done in Planning Department staffs report to the commission on supervisor mandelmans proposed changes. The relevance analysis is in the Planning Department staff report at the top of page 3 where in staff points out some of the infirmities in section 317 that was well intended and over the 13 years it has been on the books has been the subject of attempts to make it more effective and meet its Public Policy goals. As a matter of fact i might point out that i attempted to do that. I already mentioned that i attempted to present then the demolition controls but ran into a political buzz stop. In the staff analysis, they really point out and the Planning Department is concerned about the ability to enforce. I think there are a couple easy changes that we can make that meet the intent of supervisor mandelmans legislation and make the legislation more enforceable. I would suggest adding this additional text to 317 on page 2 at line 14. This is under definitions and this is actually very simple. Right now the definition of residential demolition shall mean any of the following work on a residential building for which the department of building inspection determines the permit is required. That is first one. Or major alteration of the residential building proposing removal of more than 50 of the sum of the front and rear facades, and the removal of more than 65 of the sum of all exterior walls. Then it goes on to say three, a neutral. You said and. You said or here not and on the last part. What i am proposing in this amendment is to strike and and replace it with or. Okay. Good. I am proposing the exact same thing, and this is pursuant to a conversation that the Planning Commission had that was received favorably, none of them made a motion to make it part of their actual recommendations to this body, but the third is a major alteration that proposes removal of more than 50 of the vertical elements and more than 50 of the horizontal elements of the existing building. I suggest in that definition to strike and and insert or. I know that my staff has discussed this with supervisor mandelmans staff. This was well received in the discussion at the commission, but nobody made a motion to make that part of the recommendations to the panel. I would ask i would add that to it. If this panel. Wait. Can we hear from the department because i actually watched the tape on this conversation. I know you spent a lot of time and your staff spent a lot of time in terms of the conversations about demolition. What you are proposing is a significant change. I would like to hear from the Planning Department to see if this was something there was consensus about. I understand there was consensus about what supervisor mandelman is proposing. What you are proposing seems to be a significant proposal. I am interesting to hear how the Planning Commission received that. Absolutely. We will hear from the Planning Department staff what supervisor mandelman is proposing relatively to grandfathers is actually, as you will see in the committee package, is actually a formal recommendation of the commission. What i am proposing was discussed by the commission, does not need to be rereferred to the commission and we will let the Planning Department staff characterize it. It was well received. This is based in some part on the actual analysis by the manning Department Staff Planning Department staff and let me read the top of page 3 of the staff report. Quote. The proposed ordinance will not solve one of the major this is supervisor mandelmans proposed ordinance. Let me start again. Proposed ordinance will not solve one of the main problems problems with 317. It does not prevent those under the demolition threshold. As a result projects originally qualified as unaffordable will Submit Application for extensive remodel which does not preserve the relative affordability of homes. Worse yet. Section 317 controls disincentivize adding new units extremely difficult to accomplish without demolition. I think what i am proposing deals with precisely what staff raised and the commission discussed. Pursuant to vice chair safais request, mr. Maloney, the floor is yours. Mr. Chair, before do you that. Who do we have here from the Planning Commission . I mean from the Planning Department. Aaron star and Audrey Maloney. Audrey maloney is the chief author of the report. Good afternoon, Audrey Maloney from the Planning Department here to first of all, give the presentation briefly. The commission did hear this on april 23 and voted 51 to approve what was before them with the additional modification suggested and outlined by supervisor mandelman including grandfathering provision for submitted applications before the introduction of the ordinance february 11th. As to supervisor peskins recent amendment, we have not had a chance to look at this in depth. Just going off what supervisor peskin announced, it is my recollection the Commission Voted on a very particularly specific and limited scope of changes to 317. Although the verbiage change may seem simple, at first glance it appears to dramatically change the scope of the ordinance. What section 317 would do in april of itself, i believe this would create a massive amount of work for the department. It would have fundamental changes. The commission. I have to interrupt you. You cannot you can do what you want. You cannot in one breath say that the proposed ordinance doesnt solve one of the main problems. And your department opposed many of the changes that i proposed last year to actually fix those infirmities. It seems a little and i mean this not in a prejourtive way. Schizophrenic to say you recognize the problem, identify the problem. You say if we actually put into words or those two sentences that it will cause too much work for the department, lets analyze that a little bit. Which is you still have a quantitative measure that you have to consider, which is the removal of more than 50 of the front and rear facades and more than 65 of all exterior walls. You still have a quantitative threshold that requires an amount of staff work in the definition of demolition at b . Same at sub c. I dont understand how it adds more staff work. Having said that it does address the infirmity that you speak to in the staff analysis. Having said all of that, what is important is whether or not this was discussed at the commission and would need to be rereferred. The actual matter of fact is this was discussed at the commission and does not need to be rereferred or this supervisor would not be making these proposed amendments because i dont want to kick the can down the road for another 90 days. Absolutely, chair peskin. I want to make sure it is clear that we believe these changes would be significant. We all agree there is a major problem with code section 317 as to what the solution to that problem is. Unfortunately, i dont think my case report addressed that at the time of this ordinance, we were addressing a limited scope in change. That paragraph was to address this particular ordinance would not go to solve our problems with 317. It is clear that the departments and supervisors have differences how to accomplish the solution to the problem in 317. Our ideas are different there. I will say it is not a question to me as to whether or not this was considered. I would refer to City Attorney ann pearson. We also have aaron star, who would like to speak. Mr. Star, before i call you. I dont think you were done with your presentation. I did not mean to stop your presentation. I was to jump in there. You are welcome to finish before i call on mr. Star. Thank you, chair peskin. As a summary of what happened at the commission we had a significant amount of Public Comment. It was split between those who opposed the ordinance and the hurdles and it shouldnt be focused on during the current pandemic. Then the other half of callers feel it is important to add process for proposed demolition of housing. There was a petition in support of a grandfathering clause. That concludes that presentation. Mr. Star. Thank you, aaron star, Planning Department staff. I want to expand on what audrey had said about that. I dont believe it is really the issue about staff time because this is already a cumbersome process that we have to go through. Not many staff can do the calculations because they are so cumbersome and technical. It would increase the commission workload quite a bit. A lot more conditional uses before the Planning Commission to meet this threshold of dem demolition. You say 50 front and rear combined. If you take off the back and leave the front the same and just do the rear addition no matter how big or small that would trigger that. There is a lot we have not been able to analyze. We all agree that 317 is not working as intended. We disagree how to fix that. I dont think making minor strike throughs and putting in the ors instead of ands is going to fix the fundamental problem of 317. It does not encourage affordability or density. It sets up the problem where somebody is going to come in under the thras threshold and yu notice there is dry rot, you have to weather rise the side building walls, you have to make them title 24 compliant, fire rated. We think that while this is a minor change in text. It is a huge change of the workload of the Planning Commission to review things. I dont think it will solve the problems that are with 317. Respectfully, mr. Star, this is the second time that this supervisor is trying to address problem that we all recognize exist in this piece of code. The consistent response from staff at the department is this is no good, this is no good, this is no good. Respectfully, it is not as though you sat down and i dont mean you personally but the department which has a change in leadership has sat down to propose any other solution. Having said that, i believe and am delighted that the vast majority of staff at the Planning Department are very well trained, highly educated. When i here things that are complicated to figure out, and i quote from the law to determine whether 50 of the elements of an existing building as measured in square feet of actual surface area. I mean really . I dont think that is hard. I dont understand why you make this out to be some kind of incredible form of calculus. It is not. It is a simple math equation. How would you like to respond, mr. Star . I think that the department has sat down with many people, a lot of stakeholders to fix 317 so i disagree with the characterization. We have sat down with your office over many months, giving you ideas how to fix it. I disagree strongly. We compromised on everyone of those issues. Go ahead. If you would like, i am sure that our Deputy Director of current planning would love to sit down with you to show you how the calculations are done and how it is done. I would also like to go back on the commission hearings, it is clear, in my recollection only brought up by one commissioner and other commissioners did not have a broad consensus about it. This would be asitionnificant change to the planning code. Ms. Pearson. Yes, chair peskin. I have been led to believe that the discussion that was the at the Planning Commission meets the standards that would allow this body pursuant to additional Public Comment to adopt the amendment that i have set forward should it choose to do so. Without referral to the commission as mr. Star seems to be alluding to, is that your understanding . Thats correct. I have had a chance be to review the videotape of the meeting. Iconned this was considered. It is substantive but would require a continuance in committee for one week. I concur on both matters. Thank you ms. Pearson. Supervisor safai. Thank you, chair. I think we have a number of things going on. I appreciate supervisor mandelmans work on this. I know this is something that is going forward. I support supervisor mandelmans proposal. I understand what you are attempting to do is clarify in the process what demolition would mean. It is really clear and i think you would agree thinking the and to or increases the scope with which this would apply. As you demonstrated on so many things we worked together on three and a half years, something of that magnitude probably deserves more conversation. I know you and your staff spent time doing that. The grandfathering or date this would apply, was a different universe of projects. There are a lot of projects and i dont know how. Would be changed. I feel similar to the way we did within conclusionnary housing. The larger plans code changes. I would ask for additional time to have some more consensus around this. I am not sure if all stakeholders were aware this amount minute was come this amendment was coming. Planning staff seem to be asking for additional time to work to build consensus around this definition. It is air very difficult issue to attack. We agree we want to stop unauthorized or unlawful demolition. As mr. Star said if a rear addition to a house, if someone is doing a rear addition, my district has a significant amount of those. Families trying to create more live. If they would al alter to commercial uses. I dont think that is your intent. I think you are stopping them. Those that go beyond simple additions to property. I wanted to hear your response. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and working with supervisor mandelmans proposal. A couple thoughts. Lets be honest with ourselves. This is a phenomenon that is much more prevalent in supervisor mandelmans district than it is in district 11. That level of speculation and demolition that is, i think, our universally held policy goal to inhibit is much more prevalent in district 8 than 11. I think that this furthers the fundamental goals of supervisor mandelmans intent, but i would love to hear from him. Again, it is interesting that there is an ongoing narrative, if not mythology that was going on between planning and other offices. The realty is what i ended up bringing to the commission and board of supervisors was actually the subject of a compromise between myself and director john ramming which planning staff under pressure ultimately abandoned. I would be happy t to explain to me the loop of 65 of the exterior walls measured in inyear feet linear feet at the foundation level. That is straightforward. You can go to the Property Information map and igyo figuret out. I would love to understand why that is so complicated. Maybe we should go to mandelman and hear his comments. I wasnt done. I absolutely agree with what you said. I have seen and experienced the amount of homes in the city and i know they are trying to stop rebuilding of monster homes. What i want to hear why we are moving and and or. What i was referring to in district 11 is people trying to do simple additions to add on to their home. If the Planning Department says changing and to or in the b would begin to capture rear additions, i dont think that is what you are trying to do. I know that is not what we are trying to stop in supervisor mandelmans district. My point was to say that could potentially expand the number of projects around the city captured under this new definition. That is what i ask you to respond to. I didnt think you are trying to capture rear additions. Ultimately, we should hear from supervisor mandelman. Let me ask this question mr. Star or ms. Maloney, Planning Department staff think ththe removing the demonstrably affordable, does that increase that time . You guys arent in apappraisal business, isnt this saving staff time as well . I believe the staff report did acknowledge we have had a very low number of application in the last few years to demolish unaffordable hokes. The Planning Commission would not impact staff time in amount of applications you receive trying to demolish a home through that provision. It was 10 total over the last two years. That is where the staff time or lack thereof on the impact for the ordinance is coming from. Lets use those 10. Did staff obtain appraisals and analyze those . How did that work . Do you have the expertise . Square footage is one thing. Did you have the expertise to analyze those appraisals . I can give that to mr. Star if he would like to expand. We have proceed turs through code documents that state there would be an it appraisal submitted within 6 months of the application being filed. We are going to rely on the expertise of a professional appraiser. If the land plus building value is over the threshold we set, that is where we start the process for the unaffordable application. I agree with audrey said it best. We rely on the appraiser for that. It is not so much staff time. The demolition calculations even though you dont believe me do take time to figure out and not as clearcut as you might think. It is the amount of cases coming to the Planning Commission. They are very impacted. We are trying to make sure we approve Affordable Housing. We will be inundated with Small Business concerns as soon as shelterinplace is lifted and people go back to normal. We can hire more staff but there are only 7 commissioners and they meet once each week and the calendars are full. It should be more commission time. The original question i am not quite sure what you were asking. Just so you remember. If you go back to the legislation that i introduced, we tried to reduce staff time by saying that the project sponsor would submit the counts under penalty of perjury and you didnt have to spend time analyzing them. That was what we offered you a year ago before the department opposed that legislation. I am trying to figure something out. When i read the top of page 3. Worse yet section 317s controls dissen sentyvise. We are trying to give you policy ways around this. Every time we have something designed to meet the Public Policy goals that i think we all their, certainly mandelman. We will share that. Planning department has different things. It reminds me of the conversation about housing people in hotels during covid19. Every day it is a new excuse why it cant work. With that, supervisor safai . Any concluding remarks. I her planning say that about 10 cases were impacted under the current form of 317. What i heard them say is with this current proposal in change of definition, not to say it is not moving in the right direction. It cog significant in the amount of cases. I dont think it could potentially be getting at what you are intending to do if it is going to impact small additions to properties. That is not this supervisors intent. Good. That is all i was trying to get clarity on. I am asking what the intent was. That is clearly not my intent. What we are trying to balance here is tantamount to demolition and what the department is saying. I dont disagree with them. I think they are right. Cheaters will cheat. We have people ladu a demolition by pushing up against the threshold. I am pushing the threshold down. This is not about adding reasonable additions to buildings. This is interest tand tantamouns the housing that we have. That is not my intention and thank you for asking that a second time. Supervisor plasupervisor mandel . I am sympathetic, chair peskin. I couldsponsored it last year. I do think that there is a difference in times between what i am proposing, which is intentionally modest. It was a small piece. We did a fair amount of outreach and conversations about this. We have taken a fair amount of incoming from folks that belief five to ten projects away means slowing down. What you are proposing makes sense to me, but i also sense it makes sense to give the department an opportunity to explain whether this is going to increase whether they think this increases c. U. S by another 10 or 100 or what that does. For the board to think about well, if we increase ceus there, is there somewhere to alleviate pressure on the system. I do think that is going to take more time. I imagine that the Development Community alerted to this possibility will make itself heard in the next week. My preference this is your Committee Members can do what they want. Does the file get duplicated that you for card the legislation with positive recommendation and work on the committee giving the department an opportunity to weigh in. Thank you, supervisor mandelman and thank you for acknowledging you and i have been trying to fix this problem. Mr. Star and to your colleagues at the Planning Department, i really want to engage with you all on it with a discussion. As we solve your concerns about clogging up the system, staff time. You are subjected to political pressure as are me and my colleagues. Maybe this is not respect fully, you turn tail. We had conversations in my office with mr. Ram where you said, yes, these are reasonable ways to fix these things. Then when the pro very bial hit the fan, you guys went running. To supervisor mandelman and the Planning Department to the extend this covers 10 cases each year and yo you are getting raz, those 10 cases are in dr anyway. Net, net and i supervisor supervisor safai referenced it. There is no difference between the legislation as far as it gets rid of the ceu in certain cases and dr is attracted in many cases. Notice will say get rid of dr. We are not going there. If we are solving for 10 cases and that is the entire reason we spent an hour having this conversation, okay, what i would suggest is the following in so far as ms. Pearson, deputy City Attorney advic advised. Our changes are substantive. We havent had Public Comment. Roll them into one. Are mine substantive . Your second one is. Ms. Pearson. I advised supervisor mandelmans amendments were not substantive. Am sorry. My apologies. Okay. I am now seeing the wisdom of supervisor mandelmans ways. Supervisor preston anything to add or subtract . Seeing nothing from supervisor preston. Why dont we open this up for Public Comment. Thank you, mr. Chair. Sorry, chair peskin. This is supervisor preston. I was bumped off a minute ago. I have called in by audio only. I wanted to clarify. You missed one minute of my ramblings. We are opening up for Public Comment. Would you like to comment on this item number 1 . Checking for callers in the queue. Hello, caller. You have 12 questions remai remaining. Hello, caller. You have two minutes. I i am a resident of excels. I think this is fixing the wrong loophole. Single family homes sell for less than 1 million if they havent been renovated. That makes them good. They are relatively affordable. That doesnt make excelsior affordable. For the city is unaffordable for long time residents of my neighborhood. This proposes to fix the wrong loopholes. They are excepted from rent control. They are unaffordable relative to my neighborhood. The real problem is Housing Ordinance sage. We need to streamline the demolition of Single Family homes. It is false that only a Single Family home can be built. If you demolish one home you can build two a bu. I prefer condos were legal but encourage more a. D. U. S to help with affordability. If this happens you might make less affordable to top 1 . The preservation of the neighborhood character is destroying the architecture. I urge you to reform 317. You should encourage demolition of Single Family homes to build multifamily homes. Thank you for your home. Hello, caller. This is christy wong. I really appreciate the comments of the prior speaker and wanted to wish you the best in these strange times. We agree Single Family homes with higher Property Values should not be exempt from requirements other homes are subject to. Eliminating double standards is a good thing. As noted, section 317 does not serve the goals of obtaining Affordable Housing stock. It is a barrier to add new units to existing homes. Since it is a barrier, we feel this raises the better question why it should require conditional use permit at all, particularly when communities are considering the extra ordinary privileges of Single Family home ownership. Our concern is about efforts to extend the housing stock. We appreciate the effort we urge you to explore eliminating conditional use approval for demolition of nonhistoric Single Family homes where Additional Units will be added regardless of value. We feel this would be potential to make 317 more effective and equitable. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. You have 12 questions remaining. Two minutes to speak. I am robert. I live in San Francisco. I think that what supervisor peskin is proposing is huge attack on the planning process in San Francisco. Waiting until after a Planning Commission hearing to propose significant changes. Are they significant . No one knows because he skipped the Planning Commission and meetings with stakeholders to get around the Planning Department writing reports. Yes, changing the definition of what demolition is would be a change. Is it good . No one knows. Why are we making changes when no one knows. Supervisor peskin believes in Community Input. Why would we have major changes proposed without Community Input . That is completely backwards. The original legislation would have affectedhomes each year. That is really nothing. This change no one knows. No one knows the effect until the report is written. I urge this committee to follow its own best practices with Community Input to make the decision about solving the problems in 317. I can suggest a number of changes to change how section 317 operates. You can get the demolition permit on monday. The other permit on tuesday. There hasnt been analysis of those ideas. Follow common sense and get analysis. You have 11 questions remaining. Two minutes to speak. I think this is nonsense. Supervisors would allow more family development. Single family homes are not affordable. This is a waste of everybodys time. Thanks. Do you have another caller . Hello, caller. Residential bidders association. I am shocked at the lack of openness in this amendment. The last time 317 was discussed i believe it was three to four hours of good solid discussion and Public Comment at the Planning Commission level. That is not occurring here because it is in here at the 11th hour. This legislation and amendment will have a major impact on our department and the ability to process. Every rear yard addition is now a c. U. Every year addition needs lawyers and higher impact fees because the c. U. Profits doubled the fees for this type of work. Same for vertical additions. I am just guessing 40 to 60. It would be a huge impact creating legislation to promote projects is what we need to look for. There is not one word to promote density or equal units. These are the flatteds. There is not one thing for middle income people of San Francisco. We need policy that encourage the right product, not something that is thrown in at the 11th hour with no transparency or openness or ability to comment and somehow to implement this as well. This is crazy. You have nine questions remaining. I am francisco. What is missing. We have a Planning Department that analyzes every aspect. Now you supervisors want to bring something before this land use and Transportation Committee for a decision made by the planning decision on the back burner. You know, the Art Institute that deprives San Francisco of thousands and thousands of rental units, something where people can get a place to live because hundreds and thousands of rental units were removed and rental board did nothing. You board of supervisors are doing this in a pandemic. You are talking about rich people, Big Developers trying to use this mickey mouse law that it may be 10 times or four or five times before the board of supervisors. It is discretion and you have to make a judgment. That is what i have to say. Thank you. You have eight questions remaining. Two minutes, caller. Thank you i am from the deloris heights improvement club. I thank you for bringing this change forward and also to thank supervisor peskin. This loophole in 317 has been exploited by developers for years. There is an increasing pace of demolitions of homes large and small and gradeter oversights is needed. Protection of the existing stock is in the public interest. There is no public purpose in demolishing the house and replacing it or a house on a conveyed ruple house and replacing on a larger house. The code should treat them all consistently and treat them with the conditional use hearing. I can say this for several reasons. The standard for granting the c. U. Is for dr. The scope of issues the commission can act on is broader. Dr is not an adequate solution or same opportunities for bringing in public benefits. I support to Planning Departments grandfather statement of january 11th. I ask it be approved quickly. Thank you very much. Two minutes. Good afternoon. I hope everyone is okay. This is georgia. I continue to support the change to 317 for the affordable. As i stated at the Planning Commission hearing at the 23rd of april. My comments were included in the staff report. People can get any kind of appray sal they want. That is the Sticking Point with this loopholing to get a demolition. The advantage of closing the loophole besides stopping demolitions in the rh1 and rh1 d you have the potential. If it is before the commission and they want to des fithey can do it properly with a decent unit through a. D. U. Legislation for the state and city. I think that it is a very good thing in terms of what has gripped the citiesanticly district 8. The people want to see reasonable alterations. People who want to live in their houses want reasonable alterations and neighbors want to see reasonable alterations. That is where this legislation is headed. I understand supervisor peskins concern as well as commissioner moores and also commissioner imperial raised questions, too, that needs further exploration. This is good legislation for now, it makes sense and i want to thank everyone involved on the staff in Planning Department and supervisors office, and ms. That is it. Take care. Than thank you for your comm. Please continue to hold. Hello, you have two minutes, caller. I am a renter in district 5. I find this incredibly frustrating. Over the years i have seen every supervisor at some point say they are progressive. They want more Affordable Housing. It is easy to say that on a campaign trail. What do you do when you write legislation . You write it like this and amendments like this. Lets be real. This legislation if it is a little bad like the original or really bad like the amendment from peskin. It wouldnt solve the problem of affordability. It is preventing one mansion owner from looking at someone elses mansion. Why do we care . Why is it to protect the Single Family homeowner . To those on the board who are progressive and i believe you are or try to be. Lets make it easier to build the housing. Lets foforbid this demolition. Remove rh1 zoning. Make anything to build Affordable Housing by right. In a progressive city we dont ask rich neighbors if it is okay to build housing for less fortunate people . Are you doing this . No. You argue over what size mansion is allowed. Do something to make it easier . I havent be seen any legislation to remove obstacles to build new housing. When will you start saying no and start saying yes. The people being priced out and construction workers all want more housing. I dont understand. You have search questions re search questions re 7 questions remaining. Two minutes. I am sonya trout. I also think this legislation should be promoting density. The callers today have been so amazing. The previous caller. We are asking for up zoning. It is proponents that care about affordability they wouldnt be mad somebody is building 5,000 square foot structure they would be mad it is one home. They would ask like we are to trash all of this, go with the suggestion tha that single famiy homes. Everybody agrees on that. Do something positive, you know. Say yes, like the previous speaker says. Thank you so much. You have six questions remaining. Two minutes. This is laura foot. I think this legislation is going to do what the Planning Department said not helping with affordability. I dont understand why we are paying attention to it right now. We are in the middle of a crisis every person who has given Public Comment, every planner who has spoken on the legislation has Something Better to do than this. I dont think this is the right thing to be doing at this time, let alone ever. The Planning Department has told us that requiring c. U. S for tearing down Single Family homes does not increase Affordable Housing or affordability. Why are we taking any step in the wrong direction now . This doesnt make any sense. It is a waste of everyones time and resources. We dont have time to waste right now. At this time is when we literally do not have time to be wasting. This is bad legislation that indulgeses people to yell about fearing large buildings in their neighborhood. It says we are going to lock things in amber. Wrong direction. I hope you decide it is not worth your time. Thank you for your comments. Next caller please. You have five questions remaining. Two minutes to speak. Hello. This is jonathan ran doll. These bills add more to the housing supply. I oppose this because it doubles down on demolition. I am surprised peskin is spending so much time on the bill last year. Please watch the meeting june 20th to learn about the problem was the bill. The problem is not hard to determine what 50 of this is demolished. Preserving th this has nothing o do with afford built. As we learned at the demolition bill hearing it is not very dido remove the walls. The premise is old houses are more affordable. That is incorrect. Rehousing the future depends on this. Seed corn is most affordable. I propose to focus on protecting tenants and not preserve 50 of the studs. If you want to expand carve out an exception to construct a greater number of units. Please amend the ordinance to create more ordinance or sleeping room. Thank you. You have two minutes. Good afternoon. I am sarah. I am calling to join my fellow members of the nv action in opposition of this bill. Anything that is going to be a step in the direction of preventing multifamily, multiunit housing is a step in the wrong direction. We are in a pandemic which is being exacerbated by the already existing housing crisis. Please oppose this. Dont create more work for the Planning Commission. They need to be focusing on multifamily housing, focusing on projects to promote density, we need workers in San Francisco to contribute to the economy and rebuild the city after this Public Health crisis. This is just, again, a step in the wrong direction. It doesnt do anything regarding affordability. It creates unnecessary work right now. Please focus on building more homes. Thank you. You have three questions remaining. Hello. Two minutes. I have been listening to this discussion. This amendment legislation captures a small sub set of homes. These are homes that were not included in conditional use authorization. They were exempt because they were too expensive. Lets bring them into the conditional use authorization process to be reviewed because many of them are bought by investors who will demolish them. What is going to happen when they are demolished . That is the question that can come up at the conditional use authorization hearing. Should this house be demolished . What will replace it . I support the legislation. It is sensible, and, you know, for the small number of these unaffordable homes in this category, it is something to consider because developers will buy up a place and build a mega mansion. We need to stop this. Also, the grandfathering clause, lets keep that. As far as peskins replacement in the 317 of the and or. That is hitting the third rail, touched a nerve. If there is a better explanation as to what effect these changes of or and and makes on 317 that might be helpful to the public so they understand what you are trying to get at, supervisor peskin. Lets move this along and be done with it. You have two questions remaining. Two minutes. As the previous caller pointed out, with this legislation we have the opportunity for debate between mega and megamega mansions. What i dont understand is we have a path to requiring further review on demolitions if it is in rh2 or rh3 zones. Why dont we opt Single Family homes by rezoning those lots to rh2 or rh3. We will not have the tools to make progress on the problem of afford built. It will slowdown every other project and prevent the city from collecting the additional property tax revenue on those lots, which will be eventually redeveloped for a mega or megamega mansion. Two minutes. I am in opposition of the legislation. I dont understand the point given 30 has the provisions designed to protect tenants from housing being demolished. I feel like this is all here to solve made up problems of monster homes. A nicelooking house with two bathrooms rather than 1. 5 or 1500 square feet rather than your 800 square feet house is a problem. That is not something staff or legislators should spend time on. We should be encouraging demolition as long as they add to the count in San Francisco. We have a shortage of multifamily housing in the city. Thank you very much. You have zero questions remaining. That completing the queue. Thank you, madam clerk and thank you the members of the public for your Public Comment. I dont know if there is any additional comments from the sponsor or members of this committee, but what i would propose is in alignment with what sponsor mandelman proposed. As i indicated i thought his Second Amendment would require a one week continuance, in so far as it doesnt, i suggest we duplicate the file, add to send the original file duplicate the file, amend both files to include supervisor mandelmans amendments, and amend one of them to include my amendment, and that we send the duplicated file with supervisor mandelmans amend meant to the full board with positive recommendations and continue the second file to the call of the chair as amended. We can take those separately, but that would be my suggestion. Supervisor mandelman. Supervisor safai you hit the button at the same time. I was going to make some closing comments and some suggestions, but i am happy to move those amendments as proposed and allow supervisor mandelman to speak and if you can come back to me, chair, i would appreciate it. I want to thank you, chair paschairpeskin for the proposale the duplicated file. In hearing the comments, of course, i always value Public Comment. I think one thing i was struck by hearing people talking about the need for density in San Francisco. We all know we need to build more housing. It is my recollection it was 1. 0 and the prior iterations who worked on the a. D. U. Legislation to allow the a. D. U. S to become a model for statewide legislation. Further, much of the thousands of units built in the city each year for the last decade are built with rezoning from the board of supervisors. Aaron peskin was president of the board. I share the feeling of many of the callers density restrictions are outdated and prior to covid19 we were looking for ways to eliminate density restrictions in parts of my district. We should look citywide. If we are going to eliminate the restrictions and encourage the construction of buildings with more units, it becomes more incumbent on us to be aware of and preserve what is valuable about the neighborhoods we have now. It is not entirely fair to say the Planning Department doesnt have a solution. If there is more density it is good, we dont worry what we have lost if it is not historic. There is a vast category of buildings not meeting the narrow definition of historic but concontribute to the neighborhood of the community. If we are pushing density we need conversations about the particular buildings that are of value to the neighborhood. I hope my legislation will get passed to the full board and i look forward to the conversation continuing. I really appreciate your comments relative to the Hunters Point shipyard project, the hill plan, the eastern neighborhoods rezones, all of which i presided on as president of the board or member of the board in the earlier part of the century. I appreciate that. Yes, i was ahead of my time as it relates to a. D. U. I was not able to prevail on a board that interestingly enough the dynamic was not moderate versus progressives. It was west side supervisors of both stripes against east side supervisors. In the reality we all see the world based on where we live and our conat this time wents. I represent the dense part of San Francisco that has the highest density per acre of any part of the city. Part because of chinatown but mostly because most of the district is rh3 but in reality is denser and different in the southeast or west side of the city. I dont have rh1 or rh1 b in the Northeast Corner of San Francisco. Nonetheless, i think that making sure was dont lose most Affordable Housing we have whether it is Single Family home that is a smaller building that now with todays land values can be turned to the mega mansion contrary to the admonitions of speakers turning mansions into mega mansions that is not what is happening but it has been happening in district 8 and other districts. I appreciate your comments and i appreciate supervisor safai welcoming this discussion and to my friend mr. Together land, this is not a new think. It was discussed at the Planning Commission or the City Attorney would not allow this to move forward without referral to the Planning Commission. I want that on the record. That we will continue to have a cordial and productive relationship. I want to add that the legislation that you, supervisor mandelman and i unsuccessfully tried to push forward did have a provision that in exchange for additional density there would be no conditional use requirement. I actually cooked that up in conjunction with the the Residential Builders association. It was not embraced by the movement. Why dont we take these motions one by one. Supervisor preston i dont know if there is anything you want to comment on, if you dont lets take the first motion. Supervisor preston i dont want to cut you off. If you would like to speak, the floor is yours. I thought supervisor safai had a comment. You are right. The floor is yours. Lets make the amendment then i will make my comment. As to supervisor mandel mands amendments in 5 and 6 as previously described, a roll call, please. So the original legislation was coupe indicated. On the duplicated. On the motion to amend, supervisor preston. Aye. Supervisor safai. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. You have three a yes. Then what i would like to do to this file after supervisor safai speaks is to send the item in the first file as amended too the full board with recommendation. Before we call the roll, supervisor safai. I glad you made that last point, supervisor peskin about density in exchange for avoiding the c. U. I spent about two and a half years working on legislation in my district that would control for the size of housing that would discourage people from building mega dormitory style conversions of rh1. What we did in that instance and i am happy to work on this. As you remember when we made the amendments look at far as it pertains to the lot size and use that as determining and have a. D. U. As encouraging factor for additional size. If you wanted to add in the process by which the c. U. S could be avoided. What we are trying to control is that some Historic Preservation limiting the size of properties to keep them relatively affordable but promoting density. Everything we did with our legislation, if you recall, and it was that that gave a significant incentive for a. D. U. S to be built and the multiplier was different from that instance. That should all be part of the conversation when you are approaching compromise. I would encourage the Planning Department to make this a high priority to work with you so we can get this done in an expedited manner. I appreciate your willingness to move this forward and continue the conversation. Thank you, supervisor safai. On the motion to send the original filing with supervisor mandelmans amendments to the full board with recommendation a roll call, please. Supervisor preston. Aye. Supervisor safai. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. You have three ayes. I would like the motion to the duplicated file in the residential demolition definition at the top of page 2 at line 14 to remove the and also proposes and insert or in subsection b. In subsection c remove the word and and insert the word or as previously described. On that motion a roll call, please. For clarity this is incorporating mandelmans amendment. Yes, i suspect given the three individuals on the panel and the sponsor who is not a member of the panel it will pass. It doesnt matter whether that is in here or not. It will be a matter of law if and when the deaf mission changes or moves out of committee. Yes, i intended to duplicate the file and stated such with mandelmans amendments. On the motion to continue the matter as amended. No, first motion to incorporate the removal in the definition section b 2 sub c and insert the word or. In b 2c remove and and insert or. We need a vote on that. Once that is amended i would like to continue to the call of the chair. On the motion as stated, supervisor preston. Aye. Speaker safai. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. On the motion as stated to the call the chair. Preston. Aye. Safai. Aye. Peskin. Aye. You have three ayes. Any more business before the committee . No further business. Supervisor mandelman, congratulations. We are adjourned. Shop dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges resident to do their showing up and dining within the 49 square miles of San Francisco by supporting local Services Within the neighborhood we help San Francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so where will you shop dine in the 49 San Francisco owes must of the charm to the unique characterization of each corridor has a distinction permanent our neighbors are the economic engine of the city. If we could a afford the lot by these well not to have the kind of store in the future the kids will eat from some restaurants chinatown has phobia one of the best the most unique neighborhood shopping areas of San Francisco. Chinatown is one of the oldest chinatown in the state we need to be able allergies the people and thats the reason chinatown is showing more of the people will the traditional thepg. North beach is i know one of the last little italian community. One of the last neighborhood that hadnt changed a whole lot and San Francisco community so strong and the sense of partnership with businesses as well and i just love north Beach Community Old School Italian comfort and love that is what italians are all about we need people to come here and shop here so we can keep this going not only us but, of course, Everything Else in the community i think local businesses the small ones and coffee shops are unique in their own way that is the characteristic of the neighborhood i peace officer prefer it is local character you have to support them. Really notice the port this community we really need to kind of really shop locally and support the communityly live in it is more economic for people to survive here. I came down to Treasure Island to look for a weve got a long ways to go. Ring i just got married and didnt want something on line ive met artists and local Business Owners they need money to go out and shop this is important to short them i think you get better things. Definitely supporting the local community always good is it interesting to find things i never knew existed or see that that way. I think that is really great that San Francisco seize the vails of Small Business and creates the shop dine in the 49 to support businesses make people all the residents and visitors realize had cool things are made and produced in san todays special guest is claudia dume. Hi. Today, my guest is claudia gorham. Shes the deputy managing director of the real estate dri division at the city and county of San Francisco, and shes my special guest. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. I know that your department is the department for managing and renting properties, and also cleaning for the city. How has your department been preparing for the crisis . Well, because our citizens are sheltering in place and our buildings are closed to the general public, a substantial amount of city staff and city departments are still open and operating and doing city businesses. So we still have to do the cleaning and engineering on the portfolio and things that need to be service. And the other thing is all our workers are Disaster Service workers, so we have been providing the Emergency Operations center with various staffing needs such as drivers of trucks and accounting staff to assist them in this crisis. Have you obtained Additional Space for the city to use during this crisis . Yes. The crisis has actually required numerous transactions, and so we help basically the department of Public Health, the department of human services, and the department of homelessness determine where they can put the services that they need. So, for example, if they need a testing site or if they need a building a vacant building to put supplies or if they need to put some trucks, we will help them locate that Office Building or that property based on their factors that they need. We will then contact the landlord or the Property Owner of the space or the Building Owner decides they want, and then, we negotiate the terms that they need, whether its a permit or a lease, well help the City Attorney draft that agreement. Nice. So can you talk about how some of our iconic buildings, such address the palace of such as the palace of fine arts, has been repurposed during the pandemic . Certainly. The city needs as much space as it can use during this pandemic, and the department had to relocate to Moscone South Convention Center so that we could do social distancing as required by both the city and the state. We have hundreds and hundreds of staff people working on this covid19 crisis. All of the department of Public Health and the departments of homelessness and human services, including several other hundred people, they need several different sites. They need testing centers, they need shelters for the homeless, those with the covid19 virus, those who need a place to stay after they get out of the hospital. So weve been assisting them with places to stay. You mentioned the palace of fine arts. It has over 100,000 square feet of space. It could it we were going to use it as a shelter, but now, were going to use it for different needs. Were going to negotiate a different lease so that the city can use it for this crisis. Were using the bill graham Civic Auditorium and tfor the deployment of ambulances. The Fire Department needed additional supplies, so were using it for that service. Thats great. I also understand you have a staff of custodians, electricians, janitors and other support workers. How are they helping the city . We could not be more thankful for our civic and engineering staff under our real estate division. They have been working 247 since this crisis began, not only doing their daily responsibilities to keep the public buildings open and operating for the city staff continuing to go into the office but also because once the crisis started, several memos came down as to additional cleanings and how to do disinfecting, and we have to do the c. D. C. S recommendation does. So not only do they do recommendations. So not only do they do their regular cleaning, they are also doing deep cleaning and disinfecting in places like the Public Safety building and the haul of justice. But theyre also going in and doing a deep cleaning and disinfecting after we had a suspected case or a confirmed case of a person having the coronavirus. So theyre going in and doing this every night since this started. Our workers are continuing as laborers to make the buildings safe and secure and maintained. And however we help or however we can help the e. O. C. , we do that. Well, thanks for coming on the show, claudia. Id like to thank you and your entire team on behalf of all the residents of San Francisco for all the work you continue to do. Thank you very much. Its been a pleasure. Thats it for this episode. Well be back with another pandemicrelated episode shortly. This is coping with covid19. Im chris mathers. Thanks for watching. Have this project approved and then complete the seismic work. But in other words, in other steps of work for the mill, the contracts are in compliance. Thank you. Human services, trent roar, the director of homelessness and housing, Abigail Stewart khan, and the director of our healthy streets operation team, jeff