post street request for conditional use authorization is proposed to continuous to october 25. your calendar states september 20. staff has advised october 25 is the new proposal date. item 4, case no. 2012.08 did 2, request for descreption review is proposed for continuance to october 25, 2012. further on your calendars, commissioner, under your regular calendar, item 13 for case 20111050dd at 2807 is being proposed to continuous for september 20 in order to allow for a settlement. and that is i have. >> president fong: is there any public comment on the items proposed for continuance? seeing none, commissioner antonini. >> commissioner antonini: move to continue items 1, 2, 3, 4 -- 1, 2, and 4 to the dates on the calendar but 3 will be to october 25, 2012. then, also, item 13 to september 20, 2012. >> second. >> president fong: on that motion, commission i can't, aye, commission bored en, eye. commission lilis, eye. commissioner moore, eye, commissioner fong, aye. that passes unanimously. which places you under the consent calendar, considered to be routine by the planning commission and will be acted upon by a single roll call vote of the commission. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission or staff makes such a request in which it will be considered as a separate item at this or a future item. case no. 5 at 1098 harrison street request for office development authorize. item 6, at 1195 eefns avenue request for conditional use authorization. items 7(a) and b, for case -- at 180 jones street, 181 turk street request for amend to conditions of apreschool for conditional use authorization in planning code section 161(h), 253 and 303. also requesting a three year time extension for the variances granted. that is all i have under the consent calendar. >> president fong: thank you. is there any public comment on items on the consent calendar? commissioner borden. >> commissioner borden: i move to approve the items on consent. >> second. >> president fong: on the motion for approval, commission i can't, aye. commissioner borden, eye. commissioner hillis, eye. commissioner moore. commission wu, eye. commissioner president fong, aye. that pass says unanimously and places you under commissioners questions and matters. excuse me. >> very briefly, i am also inclined to grant the variance for this matter. this extension modification does appear to be consistent with the required findings for variance, and we will be issuing a variance decision letter shortly which will bring with it a 10 day window to the board of appeals. if anyone would like a copy of that letter provide that to the commission secretary. as a matter of house ceerption we would close the public hearing on the variance as well. thank you. >> thank you. commissioners questions and matters, item 8, commission comments and questions. >> president fong: commissioner antonini. >> commissioner antonini: thank you. yesterday, the joint subcommittee of historical preservation and planning met, and discussed an issue regarding clarification of the position, which can't talk about the details of, but we did have commentary from some of the members of department of human resources, and discussion will be response from them. this was a -- the meeting was held in response to their earlier correspondence with us. and now they will reconsider, and respond to us in another week in writing, in regards to this meeting and other things they've considered. and then on the next meeting of the subcommittee will occur on tuesday, september 27. commissioner moore -- commissioners moore and borden were in attendance, if they have any comments in regards to the meeting. in addition to what i had said. >> i will just say that as a consequence, just so people -- the public knows, we have not noticed the position yet for the commission secretary. so we are working with the department of human resources to get closure on the process that we're going through so that we can actually post the position and hopefully people will find a replacement for the year end. >> thank you. i did have one other item and that is in regards to mention, in the press about proposal that is come to the board of supervisors. one would assume it will also be heard in our hearings. and that is proposal by supervisor wiener and jointly proposed by board president david chiu that would allow projects in the the future to have car share units that would not be counted against their allowed residential parking ratio. and i think this is a great idea. because it allows the best of two worlds, and makes projects more viable. anyway we'll see which direction this goes in, but i was happy to hear about that, and i think it's really going to help to encourage the provision of more car share spaces and projects that may come before us. >> commissioner sugaya. >> commissioner sugaya: as the search -- not search, but the process to find a new secretary has sort of dragged on a bit, do we know linda's current plans? >> commission secretary said yesterday that even though her date to retire was technically this friday that she's currently extended to awct october 31 buti don't know what her position is beyond that point. >> thank you. >> president fong: commissioner moore. >> commissioner moore: it is fair to say she has been supportive of the process and has taken stewardship leading us to find the right person and create the transition by which this will occur in a smooth and kind of good way. >> president fong: thank you. next item please. >> commissioners it places you under the director's report. item 9, director's announcements. >> good afternoon, commissioners. actually, don't have much to report today except to tell you i'll be out of the office for a few days for a family gathering from tomorrow 'til next wednesday an bill wieko will be in charge of the department in my absence. >> item so review of past events near board of supervisors, board of appeals and historic preservation. >> ms. rodgers. there are a few items to report. at land use one item was update to the transportation impact demand fee. this is an ordinance you heard on july 19 of this year. at that time you recommended approval of the ordinance with several modifications, including you wanted to add policy credits for non-formula retail small businesses and maximum amount of parking and those projects would get policy credits up to 100 percent of the fee. you recommended implementing a grandfather rg period for certain projects not current to the fee but would be with the proposed changes. and you also recommended retaining the five year timeframe for inact uses and providing sfnga with an avenue for appeal question authority. mayor lee introduced substitute legislation which included all of your recommendation. this also claird the -- mta would enforce tdif in -- where dbi may have missed the collection period. this week the land use committee heard from the small business commission and sfmta in support of the ordinance as representative of the pdr uses and it was recommended approval to the board. the other item at committee was the car wash ordinance. this was supervisor olague's proposal that would allow existing gas stations along 19th avenue of a certain size to add the automated car washes. you voted to recommend approval with some modifications. and you recommended modification on this one was that it be amended to ensure that a lot merger or lot assembly was not included with the project. supervisor olague did not include this modification. she felt it was sufficient to ensure that car washes were compatible with the character of the neighborhood. land use recommended approval of the ordinance as drafted. then there was one item, the chinese hospital, which we told you about last week. that was on second reading so it did finally pass through the board approval this week for the last reading. there are several new ordinances that i'll mention to you. and all the planning code amendments will come before this body for a hearing upon the first is upper market zoning map amendment and it would make some clarifications to the boundaries for the upper market nct. the second is the car share commissioner antonini mentioned, that was introduced by supervisor wiener as is the upper market ordinance. there was also a hearing request by supervisor wiener on the urban forest plan maintenance and funding. he called for a hearing from various agencies, including department of public works, rec and park department and our planning department to discuss the condition of city street trees and parks including plan for maintenance, and also the urban forest master plan that our department is working on. so this will be heard by government audit and oversight committee in the next few months. and that concludes the board report, unless there are any questions. >> president fong: commissioner antonini. >> commissioner antonini: thanks for your report. i guess the last item that was introduced by supervisor wiener regarding forest station, i would assume that also takes into account areas of the city where there are large forested areas and there's always been -- it may have more to do with the rose issue, but their discussion as to what sort of plants or trees would remain, and what plants would be removed. and i know this has been an issue that's been controversial in a number of neighborhoods who like their forest, but, you know -- so i think it's worthy to -- for discussion in the future. >> there's -- i think the issue you're talking about is the native plants versus the planted trees. >> commissioner antonini: whatever native plants are. i don't remember seeing too many in early pictures of san francisco but there may have been something there. >> that wasn't within called out as part of that hearing but we will be there to represent. thank you. >> commissioners, two items that may be of interest to you from the board of appeals hearing last night. first the beach chalet project. this was a rehearing request for the board upholding of your granting of a coastal permit for the beach atlanti athletic fiel. new information became available that could have influenced the board's decision-making. appellant provided further arguments with respect to the eir. the department did note the -- in question presented to the board. the previous hearing the board conducted and the appellant never requested a continuance or rescheduling for additional time for review. the board voted unanimous will you to deny the hearing request. the second and final item before the board that may be of interest to you was 4218 mission street. this was a building permit an appeal of a building permit for soft demo. there was no change of use involved. the reason this address may be familiar to you is because this is the proposed future site of the green cross, which is a medical cannabis dispensary. this was approved by you in february of this year, commissioners. however, the permit that would change the use is still under review by other city agencies, and has not yet been issued. the department did note that the permit on appeal, the soft demo permit does not itself change the use of the property to an mcd. however, the appellant did continue with extensive arguments as to why an ncd nonetheless should be located at this property. after several hours of public comment both in favor and opposition to the mcd itself the board vote to deny the appeal and approve the permitted because the permit department authorize an ncd. appellant did indicate that he will file an appeal on the ncd permit itself when and if it is issued by the city. commissioners, thank you. >> there was no historic preservation commission hearing yesterday. and will put you under general public comment section of your agenda. at this time members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items your opportunity to address the commission will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting. each member of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes. there is a 15 minute maximum for this part of the agenda. i have no it speaker cards. >> president fong: is there any financial publiany general ? okay. come on up. >> hi, commissioners. i was here last -- >> president fong: could you state your name for the record. >> christy -- regarding 611 bena vista west. i was just asking for clarification, because i have -- what was agreed upon was a setback for the third floor. and it was drawn on a greatly reduced plan, and then they said five feet, but it's not really five feet, according to a actual plan. so i don't know if there's any way to double check the distance. so this is -- so that's what the architect actually drew. and then said it was five feet. so it could actually be right from the corner or a little bit back from the turret. and then this is just a picture of the actual distance. so it's more than five feet. but i don't have -- we measured it, but you'd probably want a specialist to measure it. so i don't know what the procedure is for that. that's what i wanted to mention. there's a discrepancy in the actual distance. >> director. >> staff can follow up on the details, but i think my recollection was that the commission's request was to take that line across. there wasn't a specified distance, necessarily, but it was to take off from that corner of that -- of the adjacent property, whatever that distance might be. >> okay. because tom lang -- he suggested to come here. and he said that in the -- we don't have the actual decision, but he said it was five feet. >> we'll have staff follow up with you on that. thank you. >> thanks very much. >> that was on the third floor only not on the existing ground floor building. right. correct. any other public comment? general public comment. >> commissioners, that will place you under your regular calendar, item 11, better market street informational presentation. >> president fong, commissioners, thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you the better -- city project. i am neel rashodi. before i introduce -- dpw, the project manager for better market street, i'd like to give you some background on planning's role on this project. planning department is the urban design lead for the better market street project. that means we are responsible for ensuring market street is designed to provide an active, attractive, diverse, safe and intriguing public ground this includes the pedestrian realm, sidewalks and plazas, but also extends to the experience of transit riders as they walk on it and fro, the introduction of cycling, and comfort and convenience of pedestrian as they cross the street. we also manage the team of urban design consultants on the project and this includes gayle architects from denmark and cng landscape architects here in san francisco. market street has always been the center of san francisco. it is our grand street. the current sign reflects the need of a city that changed substantially over the last 30, 40 years. now we're transit first. our do you wanour downtown has d within the next 20 years it will change. new districts will offer new life for the downtown. to the south, yerba buena has come into its own. the transit center on rincon hill projects will shift the center of downtown south and provide new regional connections. an essential corridor will create a new center of activity. to the yoorth union square thrives, powell street, chinatown, and the feeder district are a few blocks away. to the west emerging technology hub around the historic furniture mart, new shopping mall, strand theater will transform that end of market street in the coming years. at the center of it all lies market street. all this change since the last design. this requires new creative thinking for how market street should be designed. it will always be the heart of our city, but new exciting opportunities exist to think about our public realm in a more expansive way and opportunities to begin building a more robust transit system that will better meet our goals of a transit first city. with that i'd like to introduce chris -- from dpw to present the new material. thanks very much. >> thank you, neil. president fopg, commissioners, thank you for having me here today, chris upbrick for the better market street project. i'd like to give you an overview of the better market street project and where the project is now and where we're looking to go. it's a little tough to read the slide. essentially the project team is comprised of multiple city agencies, and multiple consultant design teams. the planning department, department of public works, mta, transportation authority, along with the office of economic and workforce development, the consultant team is led by gayle architects with -- nelson eye gard and multiple specialists on the project. over all process and time line were in the early design phase, in the visioning planning and concept design. environmental review we expect to follow shortly, along with design of the goal of implementation of construction start of 2016. there are also multiple initiatives being identified through this process that we'll follow on. i'm noticing that this slide has a slight error in the environmental review timeframe it should be 2012-2014. so where we are today in phase one of the project, which is the concept planning phase, we've just completed our round two of community outreach, which really utilized feedback from our first round of outreach last year, existing conditions and best practices research to develop initial concepts and ideas, trade-offs through achieve better market street goals. going forward will be developing concept design alternatives for community workshop later this year. what is the better market street project. the overarching goal is to revitalize market street from octavia boulevard to embarcadero and reestablish the street as the premiere cultural civic transportation and economic center of san francisco and of the bay area region. we have identified some specific goals around place, mobility and economic development. in our project approach, we're looking at the street as one street, with six unique districts, and really three major public spaces that punctuate that street, those being embarcadero, holiday plaza and un plaza. the street has one identity, two key components within that identity, one around place-making, really what is market street as a place, what is its identity, what is its public space hierarchy, what's happening in the major public spaces today, and what's really happening within these unique districts as well. transportation, we're looking to enhance the continuous bicycle facility, transit efficiency, reconfiguring of the somewhat awkward intersection and reduction of conflict between all street users. as we look at the six district along the corridor they come to light currently in this breakdown. the embarcadero district which is the city's connection to the water, the financial district or the professional hub, the retail district, where the lee sure heart, mid-market, which is really an arts and cultural district, civic center, which we're calling the new urban living room, and octavia which is more of a neighborhood, an ideal neighborhood at this poi point. there are multiple efforts happening within san francisco that either touch on market street or affect market straight and/or vice versa. this is by no means an inclusive list. eastern neighborhood trips, mta's transit effectiveness project, core circulation study, second street improvement project, central corridor, central broadway, and the key point in mentioning these is market straight has its own identity and opportunity and challenges. but as we look at these coordination efforts we really have to be thinking about the impact that market street and other efforts have upon one another. community priorities, in our first round of workshops last year, we asked the community, of these things, what do you rank as most important. and in our survey we found place-making was number one, walking and bicycling, a close second, economic vitality, public transit, civic, connection to neighborhoods and service and taxi access. so this tells us people are thinking about what kind of place market street is as first and foremost in their mind. through the development of our existing conditions and best practices report, we identified six key design drivers. those are improving mobility, enhancement of the public realm experience, spotlighting the unique identity, enhancing access for all, reduction of conflict and friction, and integration of actions really the form of the street, and how it functions, integrating thes twthes -- those two things. the division for market street, and this is a concept vision sketch here, is really a new synergy and that contemplates the idea that transportation and place making really have an opportunity to synergize and become to support one another in a seasons. so this image particularly shows the edge of un plaza where we have multiple transit lines running. it's a concept showing a cycle track and street light zone and capitalizing on that edge to integrate those two functions. the public space, the idea really is coexistence, really embracing diversity and being inclusive. thinking about the public space that we have, really creating a compelling and attractive street, that's an enjoyable place and that is active throughout the day, week, and year. there's a hierarchy in spaces currently within market street, and a space that we've identified as potential. the city space, or what we're calling city space, is really those larger public spaces, such as un plaz, holiday plaza, and embarcadero, where people gather and activities happen. the district scale is a bit of a smaller plaza such as