September 7, 2006

Summary of Complete Neighborhood Meeting;

Meeting September 7, 2006

The meeting began by reading the Planning Code's intentions for the RED districts, which mainly y occur between Mission, Sixth, Folsom, and Eighth; other areas of SoMa (and possibly the Mission District) may be good candidates, and a survey of prospective RED's should be conducted.

1; Parking–

a.. in conversion of existing buildings – no required parking

b. near-consensus on eliminating minimum parking requirements; concern about a too low a maximum discouraging family housing or worsening parking shortages. Consider reducing of parking requirements similar to new C-3 parking and proposed Market & Octavia controls–no minimum parking requirement, with a maximum of three spaces for four units (.75) for smaller units, and one space per unit for units with 2 or more bedrooms.

c. Acknowledge the competition for the first floor-parking/commercial

2. Commercial Space (instead of or in addition to PDR uses)

a. Encourage smaller scale commercial/retail---less than 5,000 sf

b. Consider various types of commercial depending of where in Western SOMA

c. Preference for neighborhood serving retail–how to do that?

d. Still a question as to what type of commercial vs. PDR

e. Limit non-residential to 1 FAR on the first and second story.

3.Encourage retention of existing building stock and lot size&

a. How–to allow different type of uses i.e. buildings on Ninth st.

b. Keep lot sizes small so projects don't get too big

4. Lot coverage and setbacks

a.

Respect existing pattern of backyard setbacks; allow 100% lot coverage on ground floor if all adjacent properties have 100% lot coverage; require ground floor rear setback if adjacent properties have them. We want to map the existing back yards so we know where we can encourage their preservation.

b.

Front setbacks: no consensus on whether to encourage/require front setbacks, or to maintain a street wall at the property line. Could front setbacks also be required to respect the existing pattern on the block (i.e. average of the two adjacent properties?)

4. Other big issues–is how much housing and where, especially on the larger non-RED sites. Non-residential parking requirements?

Would like know the  soft sites

Need to work on identifying the other RED sites and there may be at a different level to allow commercial.