are we waiting for anyone else abstain because they're not here so  several cars including several in opposition for item five i have several cards support nonetheless we might want to still that's a big project you may not want but that i can sense  any comments ok great so we're just you know nothing i consent and we just move forward so let's start with seven seven eight  of the neighbors actually sent an e mail what you do have this morning at eleven forty nine and it's from so you just got fat just now and i apologize that you've gotten several correspondents later after the packet but one thing so that the applicant has proposed now the neighbors are here and they want to talk about what they feel is not really satisfactory with that latest proposal the project in five minutes and then your time at the end to respond to come when we realized that they had proposed a full story about the existing house that would indeed completely block the the neighbor across the street view which we immediately said yeah that's not good you can't do that so we talked with the staff that was involved in that application and we talked about the idea of building shorter edition that would not block the water bridges or city that would obscure just the lower part of the foreground of the city trees below and from my experience in berkeley that the approach i felt was reasonable it was like beginning the process as a compromise and saying this is not going to significantly impact  made the windows on the side smaller in they made one of the windows privacy so we tried to do this intermediate addressing their concerns however that still didn't satisfy the copies to the secretary her most recent new the last statement concerned controversy since she's not here selections from this are going to be read by one of my neighbors and i think she next then followed by kelly thomas and then finally keith  so if you're not already confused i'm a neighbor down the street and i'm here on behalf of pat shanks who lives directly across the street when you look out their windows and you look at the polls that  that are significantly detracted from end and in the report there was an indication that the proposal and this is a quote the proposal may block the view of the bay when seated at the dining table however the remaining will remain intact unfortunately that is completely untrue and fact it's not only in the dining room that the views will be  impacted it also includes the living room and the kitchen this is a house that has panoramic views they're quite beautiful and it would cut the entire front where those poles are and what the what you think the view would be because the plant actually showed that it's it could be worse than it appears to be so that is another concern  t mentions that the significant views of the proposed roof third story are inconsistent with the purposes of the hillside overlay district provisions by failing to provide ees to explore the possibilities of a tree on my first floor is at the same level of theirs and i have a great view on this level due to the removal of some trees in negotiations with neighbors on the lower street to trim their trees at our expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix a once very broken home and turned it into a beautiful home and asset to the properties around us we did not change the footprint we good evening members of the board staff applicants in the audience thank you for your time and attention my name is bob kelly thomas and my wife carol and i are the owner occupants and seven hundred two contra costa which is immediately to the left or south of the subject property i'm here representing both of us you know there's been a lot of water under the bridge in this project and there's been a lot of documentation as you know from your packets has been a lot of discussion but what i'd like to do as we've done before is to try to cut to the chase on this because we've spent a lot of time and energy and we were this far away from agreement we felt both parties made great efforts the impacts on the four adjacent properties are well documented and the impacts on our property are well documented in the record however i believe we have a solution which let me just say about the impacts it may be that the impacts did not rise to the definition of a detriment point and reasonable loss of might receive use for example according to the city definitions i understand that because i've read that that there are significant impacts the south side toward our side our house and the east street side toward the shanks reduce that down to a three foot six twenty call that ok and then put a all the time our master bedroom suite is where we spent most of our time close the bathroom and i got to tell you sorry to say this but as seniors we spend a little more time than other people that are sorry anyway that's just a fact and that that particular you know get in and out of the shower and so forth that that view is significant with which we really enjoy and the increase in the parapet would completely take ok so the app can come back up in response to some of the comments here as well so that kind of highlights that that may be a legitimate approach the other reason why i analyzed their proposal and said that i would not recommend it is that to not to have been in the rooms and seen the story poles i think can see that is not in impact that if you look at the front elevation of the two thousand and ten proposal it says twenty two feet high of the grade at the front of the house right that's right and i think the house to the right has a much higher parrot if you actually look at it and then the house to the left has the picture that there's so little but i think roughly that's to actually i would approve it then that it's possible city council but they can move forward if we deny it then the applicant is going to have to start from scratch i wonder if we should ask the applicant if they want to reconsider the neighbors proposal of last year matthews  are referred to the design of committee they looked at the project twice and passed a favorable recommendation to the board the commission also looked at the demolition of existing buildings and passed on designating income units in the project and i give them a bonus as noted on page eleven actually using all of the bonus that they're entitled to take it up and down units then they're proposing in fact it's five minutes fewer than the forty feet wide and i don't think i have a thing else other than say that our recommendation is to approve it and that we have standard conditions and findings to support that approval thank you any questions for se show and i hope that any additional ones and maybe what i'd like to do is ask the applicant if they think that what they've shown is enough and so we kind of quantify it because if they're doing more than what's in these plans today we're going to need an additional modification of these does that make sense so maybe we can we can open up to the applicant to clarify that point and i hope i don't need to add more unusual features as greg mentioned chief among them is the fact that the project is fully parked we're not asking for any variance it's one to one we're not using park lift the parking is easy to we have we believe the appropriate number of mechanical units shown one for each one each unit and we have been shown on the roof plan and they are properly screened so if i understand your question properly i don't forsee the need for any additional scr can go proposed i think the project is pretty self explanatory i don't think that i need to go into any great detail about its merits i think the drawing should speak for themselves so i'm just here to answer your questions i'm not sure it's possible to add more this is you know it's it's been it's a little jewel box of a plan and we have been fighting for inches in this parking garage so i would not want to promise you that  see if it might be possible to hide some minimal set back on the sidewalk still be able to like what you're trying to do well you know what we've proposed is allowed when you have a project wh can actually do it more units could be long term invaluable but i don't think that first of all you're not going to get four new affordable units out of this because there's no incentive whatsoever for the units that are designed and intended to be marketed primarily to u c berkeley students there's a mixture of her bedroom and two bedroom units seven units in the project would be provided at below market rents t households earning no more than fifty percent of the area median income and that component of the project qualifies it for a density bonus will go into the details of that a little bit later  i'll start by just giving you a little bit of context this is a map showing the zoning districts the site has the red pen on it and it is in brown i think it's important to note that this part of the city is is somewhat of a patchwork in terms of the the zoning districts you have the site in brown and you have a lot of the surrounding properties in orange which is are three  which is generally a lower density than is allowed in the brown area the pink areas are commercial and purple are the downtown commercials  of the neighborhood this is a view of the site looking toward the northeast at the corner of white and fulton the building is basically a single storey commercial building is currently used as offices and has been since the one nine hundred eighty s it was originally built in the one nine hundred forty s as an automotive dealership the landmarks commission has considered this building in the history of the building and it has not initiated the building for a landmark  status this is a view of the northern portion of the site there's a surface parking lot these two trees have been removed quite some time ago i believe the neighboring building to the north is three stories and as you can see has a very minimal set back from the front from the front property line this is a view looking down fulton street on the right are some of the older buildings in the surrounding area there from the late one thousand nine hundred and they are city landmark buildings further away and on the right is a more recent project from about ten years ago a four unit building two story two stories in height the site is on the left as you move down fulton toward the south this is looking down fulton across two way you have a three story building on the left with pretty substantial crawl spaces so you do get more than two and a half story height and this is fairly typical for the properties along the north side of the way to the east of the site and see the subject property of the red building there and then this is sort of turning to the left from that same viewpoint is a building across the street that's a four story building obviously from the one nine hundred sixty s or perhaps in the seventy's and i think it's worth noting that there are a notable number of buildings of this a vintage and style in the neighborhood and  sort of give the neighborhood a somewhat eclectic and diverse mixture of buildings and sizes and heights now this is a view that was included in the draft d i r which i will be discussing a little bit more this is looking north east toward the site and this is the proposed project this sort of before and after simulation was provided in the draft d i r to help the public and help you understand the aesthetic impacts of the project as you can see the the project  and here's another before and after simulation this is looking south along the way this is the building mediately north of the site is the landmark buildings here's the existing building on the site and  here's the the project again four stories along fulton and you can just start to see the fifth story popping up right there i should also note that the power lines  would be removed as part of the project or to comply with osha requirements that mandate a minimum ten foot clearance between any construction activities including clay steam and high voltage power to the public comment period extended forty five days from that point was focused on three issues aesthetics historic resources and hazardous materials no significant impacts were identified there were hearings by the l p c and by you in march to make comments and to hear to get to the topic an opportunity to make comments and all of the comments we've received have been responded to and those responses were provided in response to comments document that we distributed about two weeks ago one of the comments that you made was not so much comment but you said that you wanted this project to go to the d r c and the reason  hadn't gone to d r c is that the zoning ordinance does not require design or view for residential projects in this district but the zoning officer does have the authority to refuse to refer any project to d r c and that's what she did for this project so from april until july this year the project went before the d r c four times and that culminated in a favorable recommendation to the south in july and during the process a number of changes were made to the product design the number of units was reduced by four that was the result of lowering the height of the building from five stories to four storeys along fulton  the intent of that change was to have the building harmonize better with some of the smaller structures along fulton street within the landmark buildings partly as a result of that change but also  as a result of increasing the number of two bedroom units and decreasing the number four bedroom units in the project the project has reduced by thirty bedrooms or thirty residence i haven't mentioned that there will be only one resident allowed per bedroom floor area total floor area i should say the residential floor area was reduced by seven thousand square feet approximately and then the last change is actually was to have a single a single level underground parking garage with forty nine parking spaces and the other was to have no parking at all that no parking option evolved earlier this year to be a show that car share pod at the ground floor basically a small grade level garage with at least four but up to ten shared vehicles with that number fluctuating based on demand tonight i'll just run through briefly the density bonus as that's probably going to be one of the topics we'll be discussing tonight the first basic step under the city's density bonus procedures is to determine the maximum  residential area that is otherwise allowed under the zoning ordinance state law basically says that when you provide the specified number of b m r units your intitled to a density increase over the other ways permitted density and in in districts where we don't have a density standard such as this one we have to do is figure out what's the maximum floor area that would be allowed and then divide the applicant's proposed average unit size into that next and area to come up with the number of units that would otherwise be allowed so to get the maximum area take the lot size of about twenty seven thousand multiply that by the sixty five percent lot coverage  limit and then multiply that by three storeys that gives you roughly fifty thousand square feet after that we take that number that fifty thousand and and then we divide here's the fifty three thousand and maybe don't let your eyes glaze over with all these numbers what you're seeing here is two different sets of calculations basically and those were provided in attachment six and seven of your package one set of calculations the one on the left that says without walkways basically is is based on staff determination that the  the project's an enclosed circulation spaces an enclosed metal walkways which have pervious walking services and have no walls closing that those do not meet the definition of law coverage floor area  code and therefore would not be counted as luck coverage or florian would sort of be outside of these calculations that was the point of some discussion at the d r c there were some feeling that that was not really consistent with the spirit of the code and so recognizing that concern the applicant whittled various areas of the project such that even if the walkways were included that they would still not be exceeding the seventy seven units in the d n c list calculations so i'll just run through the right hand column since that's the one that is the more conservative  calculation you have a total residential area of about seventy one thousand you divide seventy seven units into that to get your average unit size of one hundred twenty six square feet you then divide that into that number of fifty three thousand you had in the previous slide which gives you about fifty seven units we always round this number down even if it's fifty seven point nine because we don't recognize a fractional unit as  unit the base project under density bonus law city procedure would be fifty seven units the density bonus which is thirty five percent based on state law based on the number of the m r units the twenty units that under state law the applicant is allowed to put whatever waivers and reductions of development standards are needed to accommodate the additional density bonus units and these are the ones that they've normal non detriment findings but then the fifth story would be granted strictly under state law since something orange doesn't otherwise allow that the second one is a reduced setback on fulton again the fourth story setback would be reduced from eight feet to either six or seven feet depending on which of the towers you're looking at the two middle towers are set back the additional  corner towers and then finally the front back along would be reduced from ten feet to three feet again this is something that the code allows but it's also necessary to accommodate the density  s state law also provides that an applicant can request concessions and again based on the number of b m r units they've been they would be entitled to two concessions however  well before i talk about that the two concessions they've requested are to reduce the parking from seventy one spaces to again between four and ten spaces depending on demand for the car share vehicles and secondly to relocate two units from the ground floor to the fifth floor to allow some ground floor non residential space basically a security and farm sales office and the applicant will be touching on the farm component of the project request if it can find that the concession is not required to provide for the project's affordable housing costs what the city has the way that the city has approached that finding is to look at the impact of the affordable housing units on the project's return rather than trying to as we did in the early days of the density bonus simply try to make the project feasible  instead we felt that the best approach was to isolate the impact of the affordable units on the field with a return on investment and if the final column which is basically the proposed project including the density bonus and the concessions if that final call and were to be were to show a higher yield than yield that that would have otherwise that they would have otherwise gotten under the base project and it's been our position that the city would be in a position to deny the concession request this is a very simplified version of the  attachment i believe it's attachment to your package that applicants pro forma it's about three pages long and has a lot more detail and there we anticipate some discussion about that and be happy to answer any questions law requires the concessions to be approved we feel that the proposed parking arrangement is a good one it's a good it's a good policy in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and having shared vehicles that are generally more likely to read to reduce the likelihood of someone needing to own their own vehicle needed to drive that vehicle and we  have jessica nygaard here to talk about the project's parking component recognizing that it was very unusual for this type of request to come before you we felt that it would be a good idea to engage erect and as a consultant in this field to talk about what is the actual working demand in this part of berkeley given the nature of this project rather than just going off of the zoning requirement as a baseline to actually get some data from other similar projects and use that kind of this part to inform the discussion of whether this parking reduction is appropriate so this is more from the policy standpoint  again we feel like you know from a policy standpoint from a detriment standpoint this is a good thing as well in addition to that the basis of the state law so i handed over to jessica question what organization are you with again transportation demand and how it's changing and i guess that the gist of this i'm getting from you is that because of the nature of this housing and the compared sides it attracts students who don't have cars because of the nature of the physical how close i mean i don't know if you look at the proximity of grocery stores to the  condition states is that documents see if the applicant wishes to manage the spaces themselves which is what they intend to do what they hope to do i should say they will have to provide a detailed management plan for the review and approval  officer with input from the public works transportation division we're going to review that very carefully and we're very skeptical you know because this is not something that's been done before so i think for good reason we're asking a lot of questions and they're going to have to give us a lot of information so it is conceivable that if they satisfy us that they will be able to do that if we're not satisfied or if they if we are initially satisfied and we find after our annual reviews because the condition requires an annual review for the first three years if that as a result of that review we find that it's just not working out and we need to go back to the normal way of doing car share we can require them to make the garage you what would be required would be after the first three years they have to submit annual reports to the transportation division and if we see that something's going off track or we get a complaint from from a neighbor or from a resident saying you know i can't get access to the vehicle it's not working with what have you best again but we felt that three years of us at the applicants expense actually doing a more thorough review you know his is enough to make sure it gets up and running properly and we don't want to be required to do an in depth review for the next forty years so that was kind of the balance that we struck would you people relate their bikes in their came down with was this is not the way we normally want to see someone satisfy demand so we really pushed the applicant to provide more conventional parking elsewhere in the project and they have fifty eight lockers spread between the basement and the ground floor and then in addition to this it are parking racks so we felt like the combination of the lockers the racks and the in unit park was  the concessions added had the same return on investment as scenario one the base case because you only took it out to a tenth of a percent and someone presented a and then you actually alluded to the details here in an attachment ten page six to six where you said it was it's more fully detailed in here and yet even there the bottom line is only to a tenth of a percent and then someone does the real numbers and shows that the scenario for concessions that it is actually several percentage almost of ten to resend higher than the base case which is the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars if not a million dollars so i just i don't understand why do you take death you know the significant digits out to really show that this is the way i always feel it's misleading when you're working with these pro forma as you are you know not operating with a scientific degree of accuracy here you're making certain assumptions about what rents are going to be what construction costs are going to be these things do fluctuate over time so you feel like using hundredths implies a level of persuasion that's just not appropriate when you do take it out to the hundreds you're correct that scenario very of the mind that we really aren't comfortable with this they want to consider another option then we would suggest direct staff to do more analysis we would not advise you to do it based on one hundred percent in a comparison of a model like this i don't think that if you end up challenging it in court you know not certainly not as major of a street is that but i think it was it was a judgment call that it was a major project on a major street but i see where you're coming still an exemption later in that condition that says that such and construction  contractor and developer we're based here in berkeley and we're big enough to have a great team of professionals on staff we have architects engineers and builders but we also work with design architects like stanley said oh it's working with this project  but we're small enough that we can be responsive and focus all of our passion and energy into just one or two projects at a time and that allows us to really focus on doing better buildings and on  design finding innovative solutions to a much greater extent that bigger companies and smaller companies are generally able to achieve so very quickly this is our last project which is for u c l a and santa monica and outpatient building and cancer treatment cent we're very proud that we won two national a i a design awards and over a dozen local and regional design awards and because we had a major parking challenge in santa monica we implemented the first robotic parking garage on the west coast as an innovative design solution now the story behind this project is towards the tail end of our u c l a project i got a call from my my my cal buddy ski who owned a robotics company in berkeley at this location he said it randy i've served my company and the plant companies moving us out and i've got an empty building and when i bought the place it was empty and dilapidated and it looked like that and i don't have any leasing prospects but i've got this building and what should i do with it and i said anthony you know that's obvious don't go you remember our cal days student housing is a nightmare and there's so much need and demand for student housing and this is your typical student housing situation where you've got three students stuffed into a room meant for one or two or you've got students renting a water heater closet for six hundred bucks a month and we've got a great location and we can do better and so that's what we set out to do to to challenge assumptions to start with a blank page and ask what can we do to build the best student housing project in in the country and so i vision looks like that where we interviewed when we surveyed over seven hundred students we had three focus groups and we did one on one interviews with students with parents and with neighbors to try and find out what do students really need and what is a conducive student living a conducive to study to living environment look like and the number one thing was give us a private surprises was design matters and that you know that matters to us too and we put a lot of effort into that and these are these are real apartment units not micro units every apartment has a kitchen has a dishwasher as a washer and dryer in unit and so this is what the typical way out looks like three bedrooms two bathrooms a common area kitchen living room dining it's it's decent housing it's dignified and it's actually it's pretty nice it's a lot better than what i had when i was a student here when in our focus groups the students were really really excited about the potential to have this sort of housing environment at such a great location one of the other things that came up in talking about students and neighbors was the need for on site management and security so we spoke with captain epson fam the booklet police department about one of the most critical hours for onsite security and the answer was ten p m to three a m and so we've committed to that having on site security every day during those hours we have professional on site management during regular business hours and around the clock twenty four seven resident managers on site and that makes our residents feel safer and it makes our neighbors feel feel more comfortable having students living at this location so another challenge another assumption that we needed to challenge was what do you do with a  people just keep the rain off your head but when i fly in the oakland san jose l a x and i see increase and acres of dead wasted roof space i thought you know that there has to be a better solution and when i fly over a city and we want to start right there at brighton fountain and we've got twelve thousand square feet of room that that we can farm and we can produce thirty two thousand pounds of food per year and one hundred seventy five thousand servings per year which is pretty phenomenal but it requires very intensive farming and what does that have to do with student housing and how is that going to going to jive and the suits were thrilled about it and believe it or not students like to cook and they like good food and the idea of living in this garden village environment where you open your door and there's a smell of i was on and vegetables was was wildly appealing and i think i think a truly innovative solution the next thing is parking the nets and i got to do a really great job here so i don't really spend much time to point out that i understand there's concern that we want to run our own car share but this is something that i'm actually really excited about and the way this will work is we will own the cars but it will be managed by a third party service and get around is the one that we have in mind and what's great about this is they provide insurance they provide booking they provide roadside assistance we provide the cars and we get to keep sixty percent of the revenue you say well who cares that the developer makes revenue but but this is a great solution to parking because instead of us just giving the race spaces to zip car or city culture which we're willing to do if this doesn't work it's an incentive for developers to do on site car sharing because it's a great solution for students they don't have to own a car and it's a great solution for us because we're now incentivized to provide alternate transportation so each of our cars can can service at least forty residents and it's not just about car sharing to answer the grocery question is a half mile away and we walk there for lunch on a regular basis and there's a smaller market a convenience market about one one block away so what's it look like  a really great job addressing this we've got seven million low income units on site for twenty two residents that's something really important to me i didn't want to pay the in lieu fee i wanted inclusionary housing on site and i think that's the right way to do it and i'm proud that we're able to do that that bicycle parking two hundred thirty four bike spaces and i know people have different ideas of what the best bike parking is and we talked to a lot of people and some people said they wanted a rocker and some people said a lot of people said they were one of the parking in their unit and you know if you've got a two thousand dollar bicycle you're going to keep it in your unit whether you have a dedicated space part or not so we think we're doing the right thing by providing dedicated spaces in the unit plus lockers and ground floor to bike parking so the site is a big side it's an office building a surface parking lot in a residential area it's a non conforming use but it was identified as an opportunity site high doesn't high density residential development in the south side plan and there's a certain rhythm to the neighborhood thing garden space building interstitial space which is broken up by these old sixty's buildings and we didn't want to do this the typical texas donut solution stanley said oh it's brilliant idea was to do this to break it up in the eighteen volumes where each unit is its own floor and you have natural right and ventilation on every side which is really unique compared to your typical arrangement and bam it just it jibes with the rhythm of the neighborhood in a very natural way in terms of not so you saw you saw this week we did make changes over and over the process we cut four units on fulton down to four a rooftop plaza area the rooftop farm a beautiful view very pleasant area just to hang out and so finally i'd like to conclude by acknowledging that not project in berkeley is going to make everybody happy but there's a vision for what berkeley can be and it's supposed to be and you do a nice shot keep going yeah thank you and it's a library and by consensus in expressing the general plan the south side plan the berkeley climate action plan and it calls for high density residential housing at this location because for most student housing in this area it calls for reduced or eliminated parking transportation plans calls for local food and major environmental improvements and this project doesn't just conform to that vision it champions it and it sets it sets an example makes it would really pleased to have a ton of community support and we ask for your support as a four bedroom and then there's some number for a two bedroom maybe it's three so that there is a limit for families that's more than one bedroom and obviously we would respect and welcome that the units will be furnished that's something that was very appealing to two students so they don't have to lug furniture around and it's better for wear and tear the units are furnished we can have our leasing and we have on site management we're also going to provide a bi monthly cleaning service to our residents that are going to come in and do the dishes but the vacuum because the students said they don't vacuum and all and that's got toilets and that sort of thing and it's an opportunity for us to check in on our residents and make sure that our building  outside it's a great point and you know it we did a ton of research on this and that specific question didn't come up but i but i think it's a valid question and i think your suggestion of a resident being able to apply for a blue curb is is a good suggestion and and it's valid at the same time the point that well what if that spot gets taken by someone else is also good now in our car sharing pod the way it's laid out i do believe that our that our car show vehicles will be accessible because you don't need to be able to access all of them you need to be able to access one of them and so i do believe that they would be accessible and that we can meet the requirement for that that if they have a special vehicle that has special equipment for an individual the  not designed for that and i think a a solution would be that if if we have a resident that has that specific requirement we need to make an accommodation and i believe we have to make that accommodation under the law and i think we have room in our car share pod to do that although not if we're at the maximum number of vehicles but our research says we don't think we're going to need to be at the maximum number  kept like that and you know that's right and our intention there is to just monitor demand to make sure we have a very high availability rate and if the availability rate drops below you know  acceptable level will add vehicles thank you you know since i had some questions about the roof garden yes being an avid gardener and everything and you know twelve thousand square feet of into the refining so how you plan to transport everything from produce down to fertilizer to i mean how we can be moving things around right that's that's that's a critical thing that's a great question  and the basement area and then we have a dedicated processing area in the basement and then a very clear message from the basement to the car share pipe and then we have one of those little mini trucks and that arises to move material you know like soil and amendments and that sort of thing around and then a question about this and i believe before you came out you had some guy who's going to run the whole darn thing you have a organisation or a business that will be doing that we do we've been we've been working with daniel is also very involved in urban farming and so absolutely we're going to have a professional fund manager and get on the topic of farming so often we deal with landscaping we realize that's a fair question so to begin with i mean i'm really excited and passionate about urban farming and we're viewing this as a prototype and we want to see a lot more of this and we actually have other projects in the pipeline where we plan landscape but there's nothing contractual about that if you sell this building and you know owners don't have your passion they can just turn this into you and i think that's that's a fair point absolutely but the flip side is we'll have made the capital concessions that you worked out with design review i am really impressed with the where this project is today it's very exciting i had personal reservations about it when i first saw it despite its intrigu require you actually to provide parking for someone with a disability i just would encourage you to look into that there seems to be room on the ground where that can be accommodated failing that  think i personally and this is a question for you i would like to make it actually a requirement of the project that you as the owner developer the project would request one or two on the street that with respect to i don't have any way to assure the transportation if you're providing that if you're providing that  roughly a hundred feet or ninety five square feet ten by ten and looking at the typical bedroom there looks like a three foot door coming into the room and then there's a lot that goes in the depending on the best technology that's available and when we open up but we're committed to alternatives alternative fuel vehicles ok i think i said really i just i think we're all concerned it's going to be one giant mini dorm you know  hi how you doing so yeah i'm daniel i'm the executive director of the spiral gardens community food security project been doing that for more than twenty years now we have a use permit to block long section of city lot about this here tonight this is only the second time i've ever seen represented for a developer and last time was in march here it's really kind of not like me but i am very excited about the rooftop farm proposal  for obvious reasons it's what i do it's what i believe in but i think this is a real example of something that's really innovative in the kind of way we need when it's imperative to be building things sustainably i see a lot to be implemented because i think that this is really important i was i'd give my talk for three minutes but you know i don't mean expound on the benefits of urban agriculture and i'm an organic food or i get a huge interest from students in our project we get hundreds of students each semester they're taking related courses they're more and more of the cal supply a huge body of our volunteer labor so that i know the student interest is there  hi i'm beverly potter i own the property near this project at twenty three ten right next door to the former barrington hall i had to move out of my house because of  riots there that you might remember i'm here to support this project i want to tell you that the project has a nice tune it's called it makes money and i saw it just because nobody mentioned the money that is going to come from this project and all kinds of ways not the least of which is the property tax the people walking around spending their money downtown all up and down the street and everywhere else it's going to make money and we need money in berkeley don't wait in addition it's a beautiful project with the towers every single apartment has windows all the way around and we need to also the garden all right the farmer i know there's one thing missing from this farm chickens i have chickens they are i have to admit but fresh eggs so we need that chickens to this garden thing and as far as growing the excuse me it's selling the pot ok now i i think that berkeley could be on the forefront i want to encourage you to be pathfinders blazer after blazers and maybe berkeley could stand up and be out there instead of being so kooky getting to be kooky ok could be on the forefront  putting out projects like this and and getting awards to bring recognition to the city and helping with the student problems as far as having housing that is decent and is close to campus and for the young own three manage three properties right across the street from that my residence and that's going to increase demand for me to rent my parking spots on my site so it's more of a there's a very strong i'm originally i was born and raised in a country where builders and developers don't pay as much attention to the needs of the community when they build if they have the money they can build it and that leads to an going to feel on the street and generally people drive through the intersection to i can fulton i live there and it's a mess right now trying to park on that street i'm not talking about the parking but i guess i'd just like to thank everybody for considering our project and for all the people that have come out and spoken in support of the project we've really poured a lot of hard work and really passion into this project to try and be innovative to find new solutions and it's it feels good to have so many people recognize that and they think george you know we've we've worked really hard with you over the last year or two to find compromises and i think we've been as successful as we can be in doing that in finding common ground certainly a lot more successful than than the first hearin point two to reemphasize there is i think this will be one of the relatively few student buildings in berkeley that will have on site professional management and on site security and we think that's going to make a big security just the same way realizing that the farm on the ceiling on the roof is not trackable what about those two and i believe the security was a condition of approval as well as the on site professional management and resident managers that that is correct  five it just says if the farm ceases to operate the planting areas shall be converted to a green roof or shall be removed and then it says that conversion of the rooftop area to usable open space shall require  it shall be removed and if we give them the option you know they've stated that their intent is that if you know for some reason the farm doesn't work out they would just convert those growing areas to a green roof or remove it i thought you at the top of my head i'm not sure what that would be so that's why i would i would stress giving them the option to simply remove the green roof and have it just a normal moved and maybe that might make sense to the board but i can tell you that i feel like the concessions for this project are not justified it but there's a lot of enthusiasm for this project in part because of this amazing green roof and all the other stuff so it would be a shame that half a decade from now it all didn't work out we put this project at all the concessions we made all this extra i add up it's probably six hundred thousand dollars a dation of a benefit to the community that would offset some of those concerns and we we we don't have any objection to committing a totally committed to making the farm work but if it doesn't we're not taking we're not taking the planting that's out and we can commit to maintaining it as a vegetated roof for the life of the building we have no objection i think the key word here too that we haven't heard from staff is maintaining the conversion is great provision in the farm condition not the new one that i passed out but the one in your packet so this is condition thirty nine paragraph four they've in your packet there there was  a spiral bound package from the application and there were a few pages on there about how they're going to manage the farm again the code says representations by the applicant are conditions of approval so those those items could be that sophie was not comfortable with but we felt like it was appropriate just to be clear that you know if there if god forbid there's hazardous materials involved or if a pensive or objectionable noise vibration odors heat dirt you know perhaps from the wind blowing the dirt on to other properties that these impacts shall not a career and the farm shall be operated as represented by the applicant in order to avoid these impacts we could be if that up by saying something like you know the zoning officer shall the authority to require further improvements to the farm operation or bring it back to the board for review something along those lines it's just that that's the kind of language  benefit people who are walking by on the street and i help my assumption is that there will be an active program where the general public will have access maybe on special occasions  public do you have any plans for that yeah absolutely i mean i think the first thing is that unlike every other roof garden that i'm aware of and purply in san francisco you'll see this from the street you'll see the vegetation from the sidewalk and so you'll know something's there so that's the first step just to be walking by you know some things there and then second he's all about education and access and i mean he could probably answer the question a lot better than me but i think there's huge educational opportunities and it makes sense to bring people in i mean it's not going to be right open twenty four hours a day so i think i mean i'm i'm interested in this not just for this project but for in identity neighborhoods so i have to be a little bit consistent and i do support the parking lot and that's being represented by the developer i think it is if we're going to advocate for the implementation of them activity always on and what i had was a condition that said if the farm ceases to operate the planetaria should be converted to a green roofs and then i said or shall be removed but i think we agreed that we can take out the language about or shall be removed as it stands right now we're recommending require a requirement that it be a farm or a green roof so there i want to be clear that if you feel that it should always be a farm not made maybe it's not feasible miss part of the whole test for six months and a year i think that you know with this is a test and see how this farming is going up whole process is going and working and we can have a presentation by the applicant or staff review we would suggest just one follow up that one year after occupancy and this just to be clear this is this is this is in addition to the for the first three years annual reviews that we're doing just on the car sharing piece yes ok all right  operations paragraph six were changing that to take out the language about removing the green roof as an option that's not going to be an option i'm also suggesting adding language that you know if it's converted to a green roof it shall be maintained as such for the life of the building just to be very clear that's ok ok and then move into condition thirty nine i have one to change it from farm activities to sales or donations we actually feel that the farm activities language is better because it's the the i'm trying to find the best way to express this it's true that the ordinance exempts the sales and or donations from control and makes it by right but our thinking is that if you're not selling or donating something you've grown on the roof what are you doing with it and we don't want to allow the possibility that they could grow flowers which are not exempted under this recent amendment and that would basically open up the possibility of a commercial operation  i think it's i understand that this is different than what's in the ordinance for residential growing but we have a unique situation where you have twelve rooftops in an urban area with farming on them which is a lot more and more activity of that type when you would normally expect in a residential district so my concern is that there some condition of approval that apply to the farming activity itself just to be clear that you don't there are some controls over it it's it's a lot more activity in one about not we don't apply the limit on visits to project residence we'll do the same thing in paragraph five paragraph four we'll add additional language that says that the zab or the zoning officer can modify it basically further impacts are occurring that we're not forseen yes regarding the maybe i should just focus on the ones we have questions about regarding the disabled parking spaces if if we're talking about a van accessible space we need to be aware that that's going to include an adjacent loading area so it's actually going to be seventeen feet wide by you know a normal depth of eight hundred feet i believe so that would substantially modify the layout of the garage it would reduce the number of car share vehicles  you could still get the minimum of four vehicles because you could have three small vehicles in one row and then you'd have one row occupied by the loading zone and then you'd have the third row occupied by the accessible van but it is if unless there's another way for them to another place for them to locate that loading zone like if there's a way to put it outside of the garage you know i want to point that out to you we i think staff is comfortable you know having it be set up that way so that the number of cars or vehicles ends up being smaller but we should just make sure the conditions reflect that that you know we're putting in this disabled parking space and you know that the number was something the applicant stressed in their presentation to us we've we've has in our condition we've backed away from that and left is not a general because we won in discussing with transportation they feel like you know that's not necessarily the goal that we want to shoot i mean i think if you're comfortable letting staff sort of figure out additional language we can add to recognize that providing in the disabled parking space is going to require changes to the rest of the condition you can just kind of give us that general direction i think we can work it out three the other the other issue is that with the van accessible vehicle with the accessible vehicle i don't know how that whether you could do a tandem arrangement with that vehicle the tandem works best when you have the that's the same vehicles i might ask the applicant to chime in but when you have the same types of vehicles in the same row so that you know if i need a compact and somebody else needs a van you don't have to have somebody move the one that's be per year or do you just want to say shell provide public access and just let them figure out the details yes kind of hard to say i mean i like to see the term program like something that you know i don't know if it's