Damage or destroy any of the distinguishing original qualities or character of the building. The integrity of the distinctive stylistic features are examples of craft man shift have to be preserved. Additionally if distinctive architectural features cannot be repaired, then they have to be replaced in kind wherever possible. Contemporary designs and alteration are permitted however they can not destroy original features of the building and they have to be compatible in material, size and character of the building. There are few other requirements, but essentially it goes to distinctive features that have to be reattend. When you look at the compatibility of the conservation district, the general requirement is the scale and size of the buildings and the character defining features in the nominations ordinary that propose the district. Those are the standards that this body applies. This body is doing a de novo review of the underlying approving with deciding to uphold the appeal and approve the major permit to alter by a majority vote. Thank you, just to clarify in terms of economic studies and physical abilities study, how does this relate to this appeal. The way it relates is a little indirectly because the project would result in an unvoidable impact under ceqa. When you may have recalled the a pul for the eir that it would contribute to a manner to a cumulative impact to cause shadow on open space. Because of that, the hpc and now this body if it chooses to uphold the hpcs decision and deny the appeal would have to adopt ceqa finding. Those ceqa findings include statement of overriding consideration side which means that you find the proposed benefits of the environmental harm. Its a contribution to a significant and unavoid ability cumulative impact so part of the finding that the Planning Commission made when it an approved the sed and recommended approval. Zoning map amendments that the zoning heights would no longer cause a shadow to recreation and open space were financially in feasible. Thats when it comesen. So even when the board has certified an eir to not uphold the appeal, in some ways aspect of the eir open up again when you appeal the history category permit . No, its not quite like that. Its a little bit characterize differently. Cab you sprain why you make these considerations . Sure. They held that certification on appeal. What that means is that what this body found is the eir written accurately and adequately described this project. At this point we are not revisiting the conclusions that theeir reached as to whether certain impact will or will not result from this panel. Because it identified significant and unvoidable impact in shadow. This body when it decides to take an approval action, it has to make certain findings based on the conclusion that the eir did. They are not what the ceqa did. What you would be doing now is uphold hchlp cs action is making ceqa approval finding which is that we read the eir and we under this project will have an up voidable impact to open space because of shadow. Thats what the eir identified, but because of the other social reasons, we are choosing this project despite the significant and unvoidable impact. Thats how they relate to each other thank you so much. I want to go back to mr. Fry. History category issues are not my area of expertise. I would claim to know extensively about that. You mentioned that staff found its tower is in conformance and i would like you to talk about that. From a lay person if you see a large glass tower, that would be different. Can you tell us how you judge that conformity and how you relate old and new billions buildings and the process behind that. The commission looked at a variety of contextual factors when evaluating the compatibility of a new building especially as it with the unique situation here with this building being physically attached to the erinson building. Standard no. 9 secretary of interior standards does not dictate that a new building must match. A Historic Building in terms of its materiality and architectural features but rather reference them. One of the conditions added to the project by the Historic Preservation commission was they feld felt the building could relate to the building and that is something that is still being work on those phenol final details of the project. Finding other buildings is a fairly common condition we see downtown. The commission not only looks at that broader context, but also the context within the immediate district. While there is a variety of different building heights, the Historic Buildings are yes within an 8 story range. It doesnt probate prohibit a building being taller and from this conservation district does allow a building to go around the street wall. If its using material where we a lot of brick building, the color remain in the same color or palette to be used in the same construction. Set backs and pedestrian scale will also be referenced. Many of the buildings have a try the apartheid, meaning a base and a capitol. The appendix encourages referencing that facade arrangement when evaluating contemporary structures. Can you give us an example of buildings in the downtown areas that are in comparison to this . The first one coming to mind is one kearney. Its the old hmm bolt safety building. Where the restaurant is located there. That is a 1984 building by two additions. The other one by charles more from the 1984 building by two additions. The other one by charles more from the late 1960s. Thank you, i also wanted to acknowledge that kma is here as well. They are the consultant for the success or agency. I want to let members of the board know also if they wanted to ask questions. There are three different analyze on the fiscal fees ability of this project. I just want to animal acknowledge that its very heart to predict that there is different ranges. I wanted to give the board an opportunity to ask questions if they like. Thank you colleagues. Any questions. I have a couple of questions that i would like from the Planning Department. We asked if there are civil mitigation nebs to reduce the Significant Impact of the project. One of the issues at the heart of this is around financial fees ability. More than any Development Projects in front of us that two sides of this issue has brought out a war of competing experts with regards to financial fees ability. If i can ask the Planning Department, both sides, i think have presented fairly compelling cases as to why they ought to be viewed correctly. Im wondering how does the Planning Department think back and get two perspectives to get your own sense of things. You bring ib your own experts to assess this. If there are economic assumptions made and both have some basis in reality, handout you do you go about evaluating whether certain price makes sense if there are certain valuations given that they are both relying on different sense of data. Planning department staff. Its not up to us. Its up to the decision makers. They have peer review. My understanding is that it provides substantial evidence for the decision makers. Then maybe my question is to redevelopment. We just received today some documents from the appellants challenging a lot of the economic assumptions that were laid out by the project sponsor. Im wondering if there is a response from redevelopment, john, the issues that were raised in this july 23rd letter around what they are disputing. Office of Community Investment and infrastructure. To that point as miss dwyer indicated, the success or agency acted in their prieptary capacity to setforth all the benefits as the project has proposed at 480 with a hole host of benefits from Affordable Housing pedestrian, safety improvements. Preservations for the Historic Building. So in evaluating the term for that project, the staff did engage an independent consultant to help us in our analysis of that. We did engage Kaiser Associates to peer review the data as data for private sponsor an their consultants. My understanding that you were looking at 450 height alternative that had slightly fewer Community Benefits but try to challenge height versus the Community Benefits that are part of the package in front of us. What the success or agency did was to evaluate the eir and the analysis determined that the only feasible alternatives was the project that was proposed. The less than existing zoning was reduced and determined not to be feasible. There wasnt animals at 425 feet or 25 feet. We reviewed the range of alternatives and as we heard both through public hearing at the board, all of the related Public Benefits that were a desire not only a Board Members but of the community or commission and negotiated that as part of the benefits. There was no Sensitivity Analysis to suggest what about this floor, what about the floor. Our purchases agreement, does provide if the approvals today at the board are changed from what is before you, that there is a process where we meet an confer. The developers have indicated that at 480 feet all the benefits, that is the project that they can deliver, that is the agreement that was approved by our commission, the Oversight Board and now the state department of finances is reviewing that. The bay down of the garage bonds and the payment of 18 million that would make the city hold for a bond issued a decade ago. That is the package of benefits that we have before us to the extent that those regulatory prools approvals today is a different project. I know its been a lot of work. From my perspective whats challenging about this project is that how to balance on the one hand the impact of shadows on open space with other benefits to the community. Those tradeoffs are often hard to make. I do understand that the package we have in front of us is a significant package of Community Benefits, but as we have discussed before i was hoping there my might be a little bit more sensitivity in terms of height what could we get and a way to resolve this. Its likely that these issues an appealed will be resolved in court. I just want to clarify that the parking lot in particular how is that going to be classified as a Community Benefit when its being used as the developer . Jessies square garage, a number of years ago, the redevelopment with the commission with the board at the time, the board of supervisors approval authorized the issuance of tax bonds by property tax. Those hotel tax bonds that were issued by the Redevelopment Commission went to pay for the garage which is still owned by the success or agency and the Mexican Museum. At the time the board of supervisors as part of its agreement to allow the success or agency to issue those bonds. The city wanted to be made whole. There were four tax revenues for allowing those bonds to be issues. So the immediate if fiscal benefit to the city. Those garage bonds are paid on obvious with off with this transaction. The payoff is 25 million. When the garage closes, the bonds are closed. We are no longer drawing on property tax again fund dollars to pay down that garage debt and there is an immediate one time benefit to the city and the other taxing entities for that 18 million to be rekoupd today. It would only be recouped after the debt is paid down and that is about 20 years. With this transaction we pay down the garage debt plus the city made hole one time 20 years sooner. I understand that, but will be garage no longer be available to the public. Single family my understanding is that there is a the paid value of the garage of the property is worth more than the garage is worth. There is a maximum of 11 parking that was approved as part of the planning approval. And in the balance of those parking spaersz spaces are available to the general public. Got it. I just wanted clarity on that. Thank you colleagues, any other questions to city staff. Seeing none. Why dont we go to the real party in interest, the project sponsor. Good afternoon, my name is margo breadish. Given the extensive presentations and briefings that you have already received i will briefly address some of the legal issues in the appeal. We do have our full team here today including Historic Research and economic consultants here to answer questions if you have any. We wont be making a full project presentation today. The hpc property granted to alter for the project on may 15. We request that you uphold that action. The hpc is the experts body with authority to make decisions with regard to Historic Resources. It reflects significant experience related to Historic Resources. This appeal raises no issues. I will briefly address the two main categories in the appeal consistent with the article 11 and the adequacy of the ceqa approval findings. With respect to article 11, substantial evidence supports the determination that the project is consistent with article 11. First, the hpc properly determines the article does not result and does not violate section 111. 6. Neither does the integration of the billion building with the tower render the tower in addition to the height of the building. Second, hpc project determined the project is compatible in scale with the erinson building and the historic district. The eir also supports these conclusions as well as Additional Information provided by page and other Historic Resource experts in support of the eir. Panel finally the project will achieve that purpose by rehabilitating the National Register eligible erinson building. For all of these reasons, the hpc found the project to be consistent with article 11. With respect to ceqa, substantial evidence support ceqa findings with respect to approval of the projects. First the hpc adopted with respect to Historic Resources. The project would not cause substantial adverse impact to the erinson building, that the project would not cause substantial impact on the building and to any significant cumulative historic issues. Second, the hpc properly adopted findings regarding to the project. I want to clarify what we mean by cumulative shadow impact. The eri established that it would know impact this. However in particular the transbay project, the eir concluded because they are in a similar area and shadow similar open spaces, not just union square but other public open spaces in the event of the area would have a cumulative impact in which the project would make a consideration contribution. The project would make that cumulative considerable contribution. In rejecting the two reduced height alternatives analyze in the eir, the hpc found that even these alternatives would have a contribution to shadow an open space generally. Also not only on financial reasons but also based on other policy factors including failure to provide the benefit package, substantially reducing the density in an area that the city has targeted the Residential Development and the benefit of the project. The financial fees ability is demonstrated by the reports and confirm that and as you know their here to answer any question. Since the reports have been prepared, there have been an additional 1520 million added without any reanalysis of fees ability of those alternatives. So those additional benefits would only further undermined the fees ability of those alternatives. To address supervisor chius question, i will point out that there are limits to Economic Analysis of feasibility. There are a number of variables that simply cannot be qualified when these analysis are done including what the market will look like when the project comes to market and frankly the risk you heard about of the initiatives and litigation and the cost that those could add to the project. I think it would be somewhat of an exercise to try to decide the economic break point that it would determine. The law would provide where there are experts that disagree that its within the discretion of the board to choose which is reliable. Finally i would like to point out that there is no new information in relation to the eir and the draft eir including the shadow in the shadow budget for union square or information provided identify any new or more severe impacts or more mitigation message measures that would require this. The removal for the hpc would be proper. With that i would close that you respectfully uphold the decision of the hpc and our team is here to answer any questions. Thank you. Colleagues, any questions to council . Actually i had one question to ask you based on your comments in terms of fees ability and analysis. I do appreciate the fact that full Sensitivity Analysis is difficult because you cant predict the future. Neither side can predict what economical barriers might affect you in the future. We are being asked to determine that. While you say we cant take that to a full extreme, we have to make an estimated decision. How do you reconcile in those two perspectives, you say its rough to find the limits on the other hand we have to make a decision . Certainly, as a lawyer and approaching that question which might not be exactly with the way the board might. I would refer to the ceqa statute. There has to be identified a range. The document does not have to look at every conceivable operation to a project. In this context, the eir has addressed the alternatives and fees ability of those alternatives and soundly within discretion of the board to choose the project to choose to prove an alternative. There is not in ceqa that says that you have to identify a break point. With the Park Commission in an approving ceqa finding for this project, did not base it solely on the fees ability which is a major part that they considered but there are policy reasons that were part of the reason for rejecting these alternatives and ceqa provides for that as well. Its not just based on financial fees ability but other quality factors. Okay. Colleagues any questions. Why dont we hear from members of the public who wish to speak on the project sponsor. Please lineup on the right hand side. Lets hear from the first speaker. Good evening supervisors, john with the San Francisco travel association and on behalf of the association, it is a pleasure to be here tonight to support the construction of one of the final components of what will complete the vision of creating a world class Arts District one that can be enjoyed by residents and visitors alike. We know that cultural travelers makeup a significant segment of our visitors and contribute a great deal to our local economy. They spent 1. 1 billion each year generate 1. 78 million in local taxes. These include restaurants and and local facilities including museum options we have. The proposed Mexican Museum will be a valuable addition to this broad range of cultural facilities, one that is different from other museums in the city. We hope that you will
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