10. 2003.1220I (K. RICH: (415) 558-6345)
CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO - Submission of 10 year Institutional Master Plan by City College of San Francisco and subsequent public hearing as per Planning Code Section 304.5 (d). The purpose of this hearing is for the receipt of public testimony only, and shall in no way constitute an approval or disapproval of the institutional master plan by the Planning Commission.
Preliminary Recommendation: No Commission Action is required.
(Continued from Regular Meeting of May 6, 2004)
SPEAKER(S):
Barbara Moleney - BMS Design Group
- There are 12 different sites for City College.
- The process for community outreach consisted of facilities advisory committee meetings; three community workshops; community site walks; CCSF Board Meeting Updates; etc.
- Most of the work will be occurring on the main campus on Phelan Avenue.
- There is a request for a new Chinatown Campus and Mission Campus.
- The main campus consists of about 60 acres. The college also occupies a large site with some parking on the PUC reservoir across the street.
- The project facilities program would be a community wellness center; student health center; childcare center; theater, music visual and media arts center; and academic facility.
- The main campus has very interesting older buildings.
- The Plan elements are land use, transportation and parking, open space, etc.
- The master plan concepts include improved pedestrian environment and increased transit use; long term flexibility; support of neighborhood revitalization; and an improved image and identity of campus.
- The plan recommends the reconfiguration of the reservoir.
- The reservoir is challenged by a very severe topography.
- Future development of the areas would be to construct new facilities on the western part of the campus.
- The plan is a ten-year plan.
- The plan also has recommendations for BART because it is so close to the campus.
Jeremy Nelson - Policy Director - Transportation for a Livable City
- TLC is troubled that the Master Plan seems to prioritize increasing the on-campus parking supply and continue to provide parking subsidies rather than an adoption of best practices in "transportation demand management" to better manage the existing parking supply and provide improved incentives and infrastructure to improve access for the large portion of the City College main campus.
- TLC urges the Commission to ask City College to: 1) establish specific mode share goals; 2) set timetables for accomplishing these goals; 3) report back to the Planning Department and Commission annually in order to share their progress towards these goals with the City College community, their neighbors and the general public.
Peter Winklestein
- SPUR has looked at this master plan and believes that it is excellent.
- They would like to add more discussion of sustainability in terms of sustainable construction and utilities function and housing.
ACTION: No Action Required.
DISCRETIONARY REVIEW COST RECOVERY PROGRAM - On September 25, 2003, the Planning Commission directed the Department to implement full cost recovery for all Discretionary Review (DR) requests, as provided in Sections 352(b) and 350(c) of the Planning Code. On March 4, 2004, the Planning Commission continued the Discretionary Review (DR) Cost Recovery hearing to April 22, 2004 and again to May 20, 2004 for interested neighborhood groups and department staff to problem solve on how to balance the Department's financial deficit from Discretionary Reviews against the needs of the neighborhoods for affordable Discretionary Reviews. The Department is now proposing that Discretionary Review applicants and permit applicants for all building permits reviewed by the Planning Department share the cost of Discretionary Reviews. This would be accomplished by imposing a Building Permit surcharge on all building permits reviewed by Planning and a fee increase for DR to $300 from $133.
Preliminary Recommendation: To initiate the code amendment to allow the Department to add a Building Permit surcharge for all building permits reviewed by Planning to subsidize Discretionary Reviews and modify the Planning Code Fee Ordinance to increase the initial Discretionary Review fee to $300 from $133 to partially cover the Discretionary Review cost.
SPEAKER(S):
Re: Continuance
Judy Berkowitz
- This is all contingent upon hearing the pre-application item.
- If the pre-application process is put into effect, then there will not be a need for the other items.
Re: Merits of the Case
Paul Wermer - Neighbohrood Network
- They support this proposal strongly.
- The one suggestion he has is to consider exempting smaller projects like for example having a $10,000 cut off.
- He is very pleased with the outreach form the department.
Judy Berkowitz
- She thanked Ms. Fung for being exemplary in the outreach.
- Her organization was divided on whether to charge fees or not.
- She hopes to have the pre-application policy approved with a review after about a year. Then the other policies might not be necessary and there would not be a need for a surcharge.
Penelope Clark - Russian Hill Neighbors
- She is glad that staff is not recommending four figure fees.
- In her neighborhood there are a lot of old non conforming developments.
- A code compliant project located in the mid block might not be appropriate for her neighborhood.
- Although she realizes that the city has budget issues, these fees should be reasonable.
Ron Miguel
- Ms. Fung was extremely generous with her outreach time.
- This policy should proceed now.
- The fee ordinance as proposed is correct and just.
- Quite often, there is more than one filer. If two or more got together the fees would be able to be met.
Steve Hiello - Zero Design Co.
- He has been before the Commission before.
- He hopes that the Commission will enforce the full fee recovery.
- There are no reasons for a Discretionary Review to fall under exceptional or extraordinary.
- DR's are simply a private interest.
- The DR problem is not just for project sponsors. Many DRs are abused by people who use it most often.
Bob Clausner - Community Boards
- He thanked staff for the manner of outreach allowing the community to offer input.
- He recommended an approach for consideration when the Commission makes their determination on changes to the fee schedule.
- He believes that simple and complex requests for DRs should both receive minimal initial review when being categorized and described as to whether or not they are exceptional or extraordinary. For both types, the filer should pay for the full cost of that assessment. Since under no circumstance will simple DRs require further staff information gathering, they are actually paying their way in terms of the staff time devoted to the request.
- The Planning Commission may remand back to staff, for further background information and modification, complex DRs that have an exceptional element.
- He suspects that the number of these cases will be relatively few and will not justify setting up an elaborate monitoring or accounting system.
Jeremy Paul
- He encouraged more reliance on mediation and community boards.
- The DR process has become a crutch for staff.
- So many cases could be resolved at the staff level.
- He actually enjoys working on DRs, but it has gotten ridiculous.
Hiroshi Fukuda
- Regarding the DR fee increases, it may be a bit expensive for most and not for others.
- Regarding the issue of exceptional or extraordinary, it actually depends on where you live.
- DRs should be made available.
- DRs should be at the lowest possible cost.
Marilyn Amini
- There are complex issues involved here.
- If there were a pre-application process that dealt with all projects that would trigger a 311 notification process, issues would arise proactively and could be dealt with.
- The authority for approving applications rests with the Planning Department so there is a responsibility from the Commission to consider the affects of the project on the surrounding properties.
- If there are issues that are not addressed by the Planning Code or by the Residential Design Guidelines, then these situations are extra or other than ordinary.
- Every staff member working on this ordinance has different amounts of money listed in their reports.
ACTION: No Action Required.
DISCRETIONARY REVIEW POLICY - Consideration of three options for a 'Simple vs Complex" Discretionary Review Policy and creation of a Pre-Application process for new construction and certain alterations in RH and RM districts.
Preliminary Recommendation: Adoption of Option 1.
(Continued from Regular Meeting of April 1, 2004
NOTE: On February 19, 2004, a proposal to amend the Planning Code Text to establish an Administrative Discretionary Review Policy failed to receive approval. At that hearing, the Commission directed the Department to explore criteria for Simple Discretionary Review vs. Complex Discretionary Review. The Commission scheduled the review of this proposal for April 1, 2004. At the April 1, 2004 hearing it was continued to allow interested parties time to review the proposal.
SPEAKER(S):
Paul Werner
- The pre-application process is popular with the neighborhood groups because it will reduce DRs.
- There should be some type of document control.
- Breaking the DRs into complex and simple is great because it will reduce staff time.
- It is important that with simple DRs, the Commission does not arbitrarily limit public comment.
Ron Miguel - Planning Association for the Richmond District
- He likes the pre-application process.
- He believes that the determination of exceptional and extraordinary would in affect create a body of case law.
- Full and complete submission to the Department of rejections should be applied.
- Full consideration of the Residential Design Guidelines.
- Page 11, Option 2, Number 10- This has no consideration for neighborhood associations.
- Maybe this will reduce the number of DRs, or at least the amount of time spent on them.
Peter Winkelstein - AIA and SPUR
- The pre-application process should considered--see if this is actually required.
- Regarding the options, both the AIA and SPUR support all of them.
Hiroshi Fukuda
- One of the key elements that is missing is to say: "pre-application process" will be tried for six months.
- Planning should inform the applicant with the entire information.
Penelope Clark - Russian Hill Neighbors
- The pre-application process should be given a chance to see what would result.
- This would be a good way to start.
- Many people from her neighborhood do not understand the process.
Judy Berkowitz - Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods
- The most common sense and practical way to deal with this is to sever the pre-application from the rest of the policy changes and implement it for a period of a year. If a cost recovery fee needs to occur after that, then it could be implemented.
- The pre-application process should be broadened. Clarifying the contradictions between the Planning Code and the Residential Design Guidelines could reduce the number of DRs.
- Standard issues should be resolved before a project goes before the Commission.
Kirk Scott
- He requested that the Commission take some action today.
- The time is now to change this process and to do something.
- He encouraged the Commission not to continue this item and to take some action today.
- He supports Option 1.
- It has been so long and so difficult to have any changes made.
Bob Klausner
- On a pre-application, whoever feels impacted would give their information to the planner of the project.
- Communication can mess things up very badly.
- It is important to take into account how much time is used in the pre-application process.
Steven Hiello
- He supports a trial period.
- There is no clear set of numbers.
- It is important to assign one staff person to set up collecting DR data.
- He submitted a proposal of more specific ideas.
- Many owners feel that they have their lives completely put upon when their neighbors design their projects.
- It is not possible to please everybody.
Marilyn Amini
- The DR as-of-right is very important with the Residential Design Guideline's emphases on neighborhood character.
- She feels that anything that triggers a 311 notice should really be subject to the pre-application process.
- The outreach to the impacted community will limit DRs.
- The question of what constitutes complex with simple DRs is important.
- All projects should get the amount of review needed before coming to the Planning Commission so that no more work is necessary.
ACTION: Adopted the pre-application process and option 3 with a review period of 8 months after implementation.
AYES: Antonini, Bradford Bell, Boyd, Hughes, S. Lee, W. Lee
MOTION: 16787
