Planning Commission adopts minor rules changes to add racial and social equity language

The San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously adopted amended rules and regulations at its Dec. 16, 2021 hearing, adding a statement tying the body’s procedures to the department’s racial and social equity plan and making minor textual fixes.

Staff member Laura Lynch told commissioners the changes were ‘‘very minor’’ and flagged one inadvertent insertion to be removed from version A: the addition of ‘‘draft EIR’’ to the list of case types. Lynch said the draft EIR language was mistakenly added and should be struck from the hearing procedures. Commissioners agreed to the deletion and to add the word other in front of the section title 'cases' to improve public clarity.

The revisions also standardize internal terminology (for example, replacing ‘‘administrative secretary’’ with ‘‘commission secretary’’ for consistency) and correct typos. Commissioner Diamond suggested replacing the term "cases" with "project entitlements" for public clarity; staff said either approach was acceptable and the commission settled on ‘‘other project entitlements’’ as a friendly amendment.

Commissioners discussed outreach and whether changes to translation services would come through the rules. Lynch said translation and broader accessibility improvements would be handled separately through planning's outreach work rather than as part of this housekeeping amendment. The commission voted to adopt the amended rules and regulations by roll call; the motion passed 6-0.

The rules package will be posted with supporting documents for commissioners and the public on the Planning Department website.