We will do our best to try and help facilitate conversations where it is possible to see if theres some kind of middleground that can be helped. I think some of it comes from both give and take on both sides of the conversation. I dont think it is a surprise, and im sure our director would share the same thing. Preservation and housing can both coexist mutually. They are not mutually exclusive of one another. The land marking of the site doesnt necessary doesnt necessarily mean it becomes a farm. The land marking is something that is separate from the city. It is more about the physical characteristics. Commissioner black . I want to say that i appreciate your comment, which is, and i dont know where we will end up today, i really dont, but it is incumbent on all sides to try and find a common ground. Because what will happen through the public process is the decision will be made and it can be taken to another decision body and then you get a final decision body, but it is to the benefit of everybody if you can Work Together to get something, because there are big stakeholders on both sides and it is always a good thing when people can do that on their own because otherwise, it becomes decisionmakers that make the decisions for you. So one thing i wanted to ask, and these are questions for staff, and i am sorry, i want to make sure i really understand the mechanics of this. So looking at the zoning map, this is currently zoned residential. Is that correct . Yes. And presumably the use of this nursery operation predated the zoning is my guess. Yes. And therefore it was a nonconforming use for many years and that is the purpose of norm nonconforming uses. They get to go on and on and on forever. They are grandfathered for other forever unless they cease operations. It is my understanding that the city has a three year right, his after three years, the use if the use is abandoned, it will be open. If i recall correctly from the report, it closed in the nineties . Yes, it closed in 1991. Okay. The hardest part i think is that what were looking we are looking at is a question of whether to do the determination to make it a cultural resource, but there are two competing projects that have been put forward in Public Comments and Public Comments. And i dont have a clear sense at all about the urban garden, the urban form and it seems to me that there would need to be certain environmental and zoning matters that would affect that use as well. And you alluded to a conditional use permit for one type of use, but i assume defending on the scale and scope of it, it might be something that is not allowed in a residential zone. Is that correct . That is correct. My understanding of the zoning code is nursery his, community gardens, one that is less than 1 acre is permitted. More than 1 acre requires a conditional use, but it cannot be a manufacturing farm, so cant be a commercial business. That is my understanding. Okay. So i think that gets to ceqa. Given that my understanding is there are pesticides on the site and they i seem there has been an initial study done, or maybe not. Has there . [laughter] we are in the process of doing ceqa review on the Housing Project. It is my understanding that we are still of the preliminary stasis phases of that. There hasnt been a full study on what the hazards are on the site. My understanding is we dont think that there are other significant and unavoidable impacts for the Housing Project that would require an e. I. R. Except for the demolition of the Historic Resources at this time, but there are also various requirements for cleanup and rolling and other processes that the department would require, which i am assuming we would have to go through for a Housing Project. Of course, we havent looked at in urban agriculture projects. Right. Ceqa is happening, a focused analysis is happening one way or the other. You have received an active application by the Development Team for housing. Have you received an actual application for the urban farm, which i gather has been in discussions for many years. They dont know. Not that i am aware of. We would have to get back to you okay. Fair enough. Thank you. I think ive got a good sense on the questions. Commissioner pearlman . I just want to point out that there arent competing projects here. Only one entity owns the land and that happens to be a private owner, so one of the last speakers made a comment about, you know, the they dont want the Garden District to sound hollow. I want to mention i grew up in new jersey which is called the garden state and most people wouldnt say, well, you are from the garden garden state. So just an f. Y. I. You know, i really see that there is a process already in place here, you know, there is an owner who has applied to do something, there is this e. I. R. Process that is happening, and, you know , i really believe that the land marking hijacks the process from a legitimate owner, from a legitimate project, so, you know , that doesnt make sense to me, you know, there was i think the first speaker mentioned that a Community Farm would be financially self sustainable, which is fantastic, but im not sure that includes purchasing the property, which i understand is over 7 million, the last purchase price, and then obviously, very substantial costs to deal with the site. And particularly the greenhouses on the buildings there that are im not asking you to speak, thank you, it is my turn. So, you know, those are particularly in horrendous condition, and while historically greenhouses were designed so they can be rebuilt and replaced, it is still in enormity of cost, and, you know, the site cleanup and all the things that would have to happen to make this a viable farm, you know, i dont know if there is actually a way to make this selfsufficient from a financial standpoint. So that leads me to another point, which is, mclaren parkas a block away from this site. It is 300 acres. It is the thirdbiggest park in San Francisco and for all the money and energy and time, there is public land that could be through the work of the supervisors, you know, the creation of a Community Farm there could happen that could be on public land, for the public, so, you know, i dont think there has been any specific study of that, which seems to me would be a way could be a mitigation for demolishing and building housing here, which is obviously the goal of the Property Owner. I think thats an important avenue that should be investigated before we would encumber the site with a landmark, which i think would essentially be a taking of the land, which would be like a domain process for a property, because the likelihood of them being able to then build what they are proposing or even some semblance of that would be possible. And Eminent Domain is typically where the government takes the property, but offers something in return, which is fair market value of the property, so yes, i would welcome some kind of [simultaneous talking] i am not saying it is Eminent Domain, i am not saying that. I am saying that like things that are tantamount to demolition that we talk about all the time, it is tantamount to Eminent Domain, it is not Eminent Domain. All it does is it makes it extremely difficult and virtually impossible, not impossible, were virtually impossible because it has never been done before to then go through the process to get a project that might have some return on value that this developer expects from the fact that theyve spent upwards of 7 million to purchase the property. Again, im not saying that it is Eminent Domain, and i dont want that to be confused. Im saying it sucks the life out of the property in terms of any future development for value, and in return, where i know a government would return it if it were imminent domain, but if it is not Eminent Domain and it is the community that wants the property, the community should turn around and say, well, what do we offer the Property Owner in return for putting a Community Farm here. That is something that i havent heard a word about and i have heard a lot of nostalgia, which is great. I totally agree. This is very historic. Im not doubting that at all, but i think a significant amount of it is just not, you know, theres not a balance of reasonable exchange for taking a private property and making it community property, so that makes me nervous about land marking. Going through the land marking process and then just adding additional, almost impossible hurdles for a Property Owner. Again, i just think that there is a 300acre garden in that neighborhood which is mclaren park, which is, you know, not a very well utilized park compared to Golden Gate Park or the presidio, which are the two larger parks in the city, and then that could be, i assume it has very similar soil conditions there, you wouldnt have to deal with pesticides that were put on that site for many, many years,. There are alternatives to this plan. The moment could be examined and we could offers some advice on that as well then for that to come to the Planning Commission to also plan in on it. Thank you. Commissioner johns . Thank you. I share a lot of practically all , in fact, of commissioner pearlmans observations and concerns. One thing, looking at it more from historical point of view, this was a flower operation, it wasnt a food farm, and if we are trying if were talking about preserving, you know, the historical character of the neighborhood, which is completely golden, lets face it , because it has been developed over the years, except for this one outline plot, i havent heard anybody talk about raising flowers. I havent heard anybody talk about how what the friends of this property want to do and it will get back to that. This has become, totally in my opinion, very worthwhile project which is raising food and urban farming, but it is completely detached from the flower business and my family was in the fill our business, they raised or kids. They had huge greenhouses all up and down the west coast. I am familiar with that and i have some attachment to it, but i am not convinced that there is an effort to landmark this property in a way that connects with what it was. So we are faced here with certain choices. And now i do think it is much, much preferable to go through the e. I. R. And ceqa process, rather then the land marking, for the following reasons. It is flexible, land marking is not. The land marking of this property, in my view, will inevitably result in expensive litigation, expensive for the developer, but the developer his probably in a much better position to bear the cost of that mitigation than our friends of 770. Now, the e. I. R. , ceqa process can force a compromise. It can allow the parties, with the assistance of the governmental agencies, to develop a solution which we cant, and so that is really important to me. And commissioner pearlman mentioned mclaren park. I would think that in any ceqa and e. I. R. Tape review, that we ought to get, or the parties ought to get recreation and park involved to utilize that underutilized park for the community benefit. And in that way, i think, the friends of 770, they could get almost anything it wants and the city and county of San Francisco and the developer could get the housing that it wants. I would really like to see and it has been mentioned in other projects, but i would really like to see, as part of any development of the 774 housing, that there would be a component which describes the history of the Garden District, what was there, and the flowers that were grown and so forth and so i suspect that the developer would be relatively amenable to doing that. So as i said, i think that the e. I. R. Ceqa process just offers so much more to everybody that thats how i would like to go. And frankly, i am not prepared today to vote yes on land marking this property. Thank you. I just wanted to emphasize the action before you today for land marking the project but adding the project, which is a preliminary step. If you were to do that, then you would have to initiate and then you would recommend to the board board and the board would landmark. I am not saying you should go one way or another, but this is not land marking what we are talking about. We are correct. And speaking with the precision that i ought to have used, and not to put too fine a point on it to, my input to the department is that we should not proceed any further at all with land marking and we should not devote any of the h. P. C. Budget or staff to provide any information, so as to the question, is the property eligible for, and should it be added to the landmark designation work program that is the lbw p. , i am not prepared to vote yes on that. I dont mean to beat these questions over and over, obviously there is a really strong interest in what used to be on this site. At the moment, the structures are in really terrible shape and it would be extremely expensive to maintain them. We are not just land marking the idea. Presumably we would be land marking the structures as well. Is that correct . That is accurate. So should someone wish lets say the developer decides to bail, and the property is available and landmarked for either a Neighborhood Group or another developer, it is very expensive they would have to replace the structures. But the interesting thing is, those are all structures that i suspect that are nonconforming, so there would be variances and all sorts of other complicated landuse entitled with this i am beginning to believe that land marking this property does not serve anybody very well. I do think the ceqa process is a viable way of finding, through the preservation alternatives, a way to do that. I have listened to some very persuasive comments and given the complexities for anything that happened on the site, if it is landmarked. I have a question for you, miss taylor. Commissioners mentioned the park owned by the recreation and park department. Has there any discussion with them has there been any discussion with them about possibly partnering or possibly offering any of their park im not aware of any formal discussions between recreation and park and the friends of 770 woolsey. Okay. Commissioners, we are asked to take one of three actions. The first is to determine whether the property is eligible and should be added to the landmark designation, or that you do not feel that the property is eligible for the landmark designation, or if there is insufficient evidence and further Research Needs to be done to determine whether the property is eligible. Can you clarify for us procedurally that if we were to place this project, to add this project to the landmark designation work program, that we would need the full four boats . Yes, in this situation we are short two commissioners, so any action will require four boats for procedural matters for votes for procedural matters to continue. Your choices if the vote is unanimous, you can continue the matter until there is a full set of commissioners. Of course, commissioner hyland would still need to recuse himself and there is a potential for only three commissioners. Of course, we dont know when there will be seven commissioners. We certainly do not. We also would have to vote on continuing it. I would like to make a motion to i do not believe this is eligible. Based on this conversation. I would like to make a motion not to include this on our landmark designation work program. I second the motion. So you are supporting the first option . No. To not place it . So you do not consider it. Im not supporting it. If theres nothing further, there is a motion that has been seconded to not include this property to the Landmark Program [roll call] motion fails 31. Is there an alternate motion . There is no alternate motion. The application fails. Do i hear an alternate motion i dont thank you do. I think i am outnumbered. Could you repeat that . That would be a de facto disapproval of the application. Yes. If theres nothing further, commissioners, we should move on we have a full flight still ahead of us. Commissioners, that will place us in items 12 a. We can call president hyland back. I was just going to say, can we take a bear with me as i read these into the record. Staff is recommending all the applications by approval for the Small Business application. Because of the number of the applications and the length of todays hearing, i do not have plans to describe each of the applicants, whoever want to bring a few details to the commissions attention and then i will open for questions in Public Public comment. Theres one applicant that is requesting to be exempt from the 30 year rule as they are currently facing significant risk of displacement. The business is 28 years old and has an upcoming lease negotiation which puts them at risk of displacement. Next, similarly there are three businesses that are seeking exemptions for the break and operations role of two years. They were both closed during the world war ii japanese internment period and were reopened immediately after their owners incarceration ended, and then original joes was also closed for five years after a fire in 2007. The Small Business commission determined the april hearing. They do qualify. Next, for the applicants today, they were identified and the japan town Cultural Heritage and Economic Sustainability strategy as well as Cultural Assets through Community Led inventory. I just wanted to note that for you so you can note the connection with the cultural district program. And then lastly, the punchline is one of the applicants that has received significant press Conference Coverage due to a current thre