i'm sophie hayward, planning staff. the item before you today is the initiation of planning code amendments to sections 842 and 842.29, a section that deals with the controls for mixed use office district. as you know, initiation does not involve the decision on the substance of the amendments. the commission may, however, hold a separate adoption hearing and take action on the proposed planning code amendments after the required 20 day notice period. if you choose to initiate this amendment today, staff would begin public outreach regarding the specifics of the amendment. the proposed amendment would allow tourist hotels of any size within the mixed use office zoning district with conditional use authorization. so, specifically the code amendments would add a note to the narrative section of the beginning of 842 clarifying the tourist hotels are permitted as conditional use or with conditional use authorization. and would also amend table 842.49. i think i may have misspoken before. it's 842.49. by removing the size re

sophie hayward, staff and legislative affairs is here as well. >> opening it up for public comment. i have a couple speaker cards. neil julian owe. michael berndon. gustav o sarena. >>> good afternoon, president fong, commissioners. i'm neil julian owe [speaker not understood]. foundation currently operates three [speaker not understood]. magnet, stone wall, all of our prevention services and programs under the umbrella of staff aids project. the need for these services has been growing and we're not able to meet the existing demand at our current locations. for example, last year the magnet organization performed more than 15,000 clinical visits and had to turn away more than 2000 men because of a lack of capacity and space. that's why we're moving forward with the plans to co-locate these services in a larger space at 474 castro which will create the first dedicated facility for health and wellness for gay and bisexual men in the united states. this new center will enable us to keep work -- keep up with the demand for services, a demand by people who live, work, and play in the ca

the sophie hayward from planning will present the ordinance, but essentially the legislation does a few things. first, it allows transfers of liquor licenses within the district. so, currently my understanding is that the mission alcohol special use district, the first alcohol restricted use district to be established under the planning code is also the most restrictive. it doesn't allow transfers within the district at all. this means that potentially bad actors are frozen in place, there is no enincentive to close up and move on because that would mean the loss of a license. this means that the code is propping up those very uses that perhaps most of us would like to go away. under the legislation, any transfers would need to be considered as a conditional use and the legislation requires that good neighbor policies be attached to any conditional use [speaker not understood]. secondly, the legislation allows uses that currently have a liquor license to close down to make repairs, like opening up windows, improving the facade, improving layout for a-d-a access, et cetera, without losin

sophie hayward, planning staff. and again, before i begin my presentation, i'd like to turn it over with your permission to jeremy pollack, he's here from supervisor avalos's office. supervisor avalos is the sponsoring supervisor for this piece of legislation. >> good afternoon, commissioners. jeremy pollack from supervisor avalos's office. and, yeah, i'll leave it to ms. hayward to give you the other details on the minutiae of this ordinance. i wanted to present just a brief overview of the ordinance and our intent with it. the staff report hopefully breaks it up into sort of three main parts. the part that deals with section 317 that deals with the controls for loss of dwelling units through demolition, conversion and merger, and our intent is to bring the criteria that you use when evaluating those situations more in line with the general plan's housing element which has a strong support for preservation of existing housing, particularly affordable housing and rent controlled housing. the second portion of the or

sophie hayward, planning staff. and thank you to supervisor wiener for summarizing the ordinance so thoroughly. just to repeat, the proposed ordinance does three things. first, it would convert much of the existing upper market ncd to the upper market nct. it would also amend the height and bulk classification of the single lot, lot 34 and block 35 63 from 50 x to 65 b. and then lastly, it would amend planning code section 703.2b to allow food processing as an accessory use. on the west side of noe street between 15th and beaver for -- as an accessory use to a nonresidential establishment within 300 feet, provided that the food processing setback minimum of 15 feet from the property line and that accessory use be subject to section 312 notification and that it would sunset after one year. now, the department has presented to you in your packets a two-part recommendation and it's reflected in the draft resolution before you. first, the department makes a series of recommendations to the commission that you recommend

. >> sophie hayward, planning staff. and you're right, the density in the nct district is controlled by the bulk and mass of the building and not by lot area. whereas in the d district it's by lot area. >> does that provide more flexibility or, you know, [inaudible]? >> if i could, emory rodgers, planning department staff. this idea came out of the market and octavia plan. it was an idea about trying to get density in neighborhoods in a way that is compatible with existing character. if you look at the zoning prior to the change to the nct and rto, the zoning actually would not allow the existing housing stock to be rebuilt because the existing housing stock was much denser than what the zoning would allow. so, by looking at what is the appropriate form and sticking with the prevailing form of the area, we were able to get more density within the historic character of the district. >> thanks, that's really helpful. i'm supportive of that part of the legislation, the consistency, have it all be one market nct makes sense.

. >> commissioners, sophie hayward, planning staff. before i make my presentation if it's all right with you, i'd like to turn this over to supervisor wiener. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thank you for the opportunity. today before you is a legislation that i have authored relating to the upper market neighborhood which i represent. it does several things -- three things to be precise. first, it replaces the upper market neighborhood commercial district with the upper market neighborhood commercial transit district, nct, for the block of market street west of noe to the eastern edge of castro street. this simply follows along with the board of supervisors addition or extension of the