discouraged verticality and building up and that might make parts in some parts of the country with the housing majority and not saying we need to build up everywhere, but to have a blanket discouraging of that by that is something we need to discourage. >> i would like to acknowledge that commissioner john and martinez are here from the historic preservation commission and they, too, would like to speak. >> commissioners, goofrn and thank you for the afternoon -- commissioners, good afternoon, and thank you for the

opportunity to address you. san francisco is the oldest largest city in the western united states and as such we have a wealth of historic resources and of great buildings and great stories and sometimes we need to step back and remember that this city is unusually blessed in the west with these resources. it is only in the past couple of decades that the general conversation has become aware of particular stories such as the japanese immigrants in san francisco and black history and spoke about black san francisco and which surprised me and the complexity of the history and which has been -- has tended to stop at 1860 and the context

statement and the history that have generally been done. and a lot more work needs to be done about the chicano movement and so on and so forth. i think it is important to remember that, yes, cities need to change and grow and become more advanced and so on and so forth, but we do have a particular heritage here that is as unique and certain responsibility comes with that to treat it properly. so i am sure everyone in the room understands this and that i think it needs to be spoken from time to time. so with that i understand that the director has made a clarification in terms of the process and whatever, but what hasn't been stated to you is

precisely my rationale for the particular opinions about the particular amendments that the supervisor has been proposing. and so i hope in the next go round not only are the recommendations forward but the reasons for the recommendations to try to articulate those as clearly as possible. and it bears remembering that it has been the h.p.c.'s interpretation to come up with a draft with major changes. after we dropped that, we

decided to come up with substantive changes that everyone could agree on. we spent over a year at our commission and many hours in public hearings going over drafts and specifically aiming at this is a cleanup federal amendment that everybody could agree on to make substantive changes. whatever the merits of the amendment put forth by the supervisor, they are coming in more or less at the 11th hour and it is hard to have a proper discussion about many of them. and the h.p.c. has agreed to some of the amendments. some of the amendments we partly agree with the planning department they need to have greater discussion. and some of the amendments we

disagree with. i don't know how you want to proceed. possible ways to proceed would be when you actually take an action is to forward a draft and set aside some amendments for even further discussion or you can hear the whole thing in full, but i do think there are several of the amendments that given this city's hirsry for make -- history for making planning decisions and with the extensive discussion. i am going to go through some of the major ones. in terms of outreach, the word "robust" and if it's in the code, is it ground for a lawsuit if someone thinks that the outreach wasn't sufficiently robust. i think we should have robust outreaches for whatever we do.

i think that should be a matter of planning policy because exactly what that means is going to change from time to time and i thinkites something that this commission can direct people to do and my commission can direct people to do that is something that can be changed over time. i don't think it belongs in the planning code. the language about the -- and they are not in the exact same orreder that the supervisor was talking about them. and the require for 66% of the application from the property owners has never been used. it's a language that is confusing and people have never really understood exactly what it meant. there is a conflict because it's in conflict with the complicit powers under prop j. under prop j there is no

restriction on the board of supervisors to initiate. what the h.p.c. was going to do is discuss consensus after the adoption of the amendment and we were going to set this aside and talk about what kind of buy-in we as a commission needed from a residence or resource from a potential district before it was established. the 66% creates an odd situation because then if someone -- if that group applies to the department with an application, they have to have a 66% approval but there is nothing stopping a group of people with a petition coming to either my commission or board of supervisors and saying please initiate this. it creates a confusing

situation. you have two different ways for the public to ask an initiation. we have had rather confusing discussions about this at my commission and it is a confusing subject. this is one that merits more discussion. and i think there is a lot of not considered best practice around the country and i think to establish a district there does have to be buy-in for the district. it is a question of how the commissioner brought it up and is it one vote per property or per property owner and what if the husband and wife and cousin

living there disagree and they are all property owners. do they each get a vote? what about tenants if we did do a local district in the tenderloin where larger buildings with many tenants and fewer property owners, the result might be very different than if the vote is just the property owners and they have just as much stake in the neighborhood as the property owner. and i think residential districts are different from commercial districts rater than a small residential district like the district i am most troubled is where there are single family homes and city as a whole doesn't have a lot of stake in this one small

neighborhood and the city as a whole has a greater interest in the areas especially a commercial district with out of town owners and corporations that are property owners and office workers that don't live in the city and have a stake in it and what happens is many businesses have a stake in what happens. and how do you gauge all that with a simple vote of property owners? and it becomes an issue of, well, you have this vote and it's informational owning and and how do you explain to them what we're having this vote. and i think this is one issue that bears this will have

consequences. and personally i think there needs to be buy. in for any district but i don't want us to handicap the land use policy thinking because of that. on other issues, i think, again, your commission can do as it pleases in a sense and you can always do that and if you may have a district that comes with no comment and why should staff be forced to come up with the document when you have no comment and that is something that you can always ask for and it may not be necessary.

the staff has to do a certain amount of that anyway. and economic hardship, my commission supports that idea in terms of the fees. we did not look at the question of as it were, changing the requirements because of economic hardship, although i are note that the secretary of the interior standards already takes that into account and there is language from the suspect of the interior to consider economic hardship and technical difficulty in how to replace things and my commission voted

not to have the window replacement that would have been historically viable because it would have been an economic hardship. i was on a vote to demolish an historic building that a church had in richmond because it was technically and economically infeese to believe do a -- infeasible to do a retrofit on that building. and the secretary of the interior of standards and interpretation already allow for economic hardship. and i think it would be an even better idea to wave the fees for all planning department fees for low income and would be a better idea to wave up a d.b.i. department building fees for low income. the amount of those that are done is actually very small but the amount of fees and planning fees are more significant.

and a lot of this work is already being done but being done without permits. and with that i have been an an architect for over 20 years and in many situations where i have been stuck with buildings with a lot of work to limit that permit and to help to clean up what is a mess and we can get the inspectors out there and make sure that the work is done right and the people who inherit the property or the second owners aren't stuck with the messes and it is not going to be a huge amount of money for the city because these are all small maintenance projects that don't incur large fees but a lot of money to the person doing the work. and i think i would appreciate -- i talked to deborah walker about it who thinks it is an intriguing idea and i would appreciate your commission's interest and in waving all fees for fixed xhk and low income

people to define that and figure out how to avoid abuses but this is a longer kvrgs than getting the amendments a-- and this is a longer conversation than getting the amendments ahead. the secretary of standards had been diskuz and there is problems with them becoming option that. in terms of the c.l.g. status and the reason they are not in article 10 and 11 they haven't been updated since the interior secretary's standards were created. yeah, they are not in there because they are too old, but we have been using them in a way that has gotten us c.l.g. sta us is and i think that a longer conversation has to be had about that because there is a lot of misinformation in the standard and they are flexible and we are totally open and we suggested

before the weiner amendments and suggested it before that we target language about compatibility and the whole issue about what is -- how much of a differentiation you have to have. i mean, personally, and not speaking for h. p.c. and the language around differentiation is in effect mandating a particular style and i don't care the government should be mandating style. i think they should be mandating quality perhaps but not style. and so the question of whether you have a subtle differentiation or you have to have a major differentiation is what bears discussion and how many story cans you add to a one-story warehouse? a very popular topic always and let's have a conversation about

that and they know they are okay and can try for more but have to make the case for it. >> and i would definitely like to do that and my commission would also like to do that. a number of the proposed amendments my commission did not review. we did not review the language around low income housing projects. that was one that came in later. and i'll have to discuss that with you later because we haven't discussed it. and section 111b, there is a lot of -- there were a number of amendments around article 11 and there was one proposal that rejected the idea of doing evaluations for buildings that

were unevaluated before demolition. that didn't make sense. why wouldn't you evaluate a building before you tore it down? the amendment concerning 111.7a 1 exempts category three buildings from which no t.d.r. has been transferred for review. and from our point of view that review power was given to us by prop j. so we feel that the change to the article 10 and 11 to reflect that change in the additional review was given to us under prop j and why take it away in article 11. and the 180-day time limit on reclassificati reclassification, the thing about reclassification in article 11 districts is that the only ones we have seen have been initiated by the property owner to increase the status and the historic status of a building

for some advantage for t.b.r.'s or for exemptions for occupancy exemptions that are in the planning code. so my concern is that the time limit is putting a burden on the applicant and whether they need to do more research for the h.p.c. is not convinced that enough outreach has been done to justify the upgrade and that may be enough. i think there is the presumption that these higher concentrations are in the protoowner's -- the that the property owner's are in their disinterest, but the ones we have seen are in their interest. that is something else -- president olague: i apologize, commissioner martinez, i have to leave. but i would be interested obviously in the rationale and everything, but you can continue on, but i just didn't want you to -- >> the last thing that i would like to say is moving forward, i

think it would be a good idea to take the amendments, the controversial ones, not the ones everybody can agree on and we have agreed on some, and i think some might be economic hardship and i think it is great and we need to flesh it out. and i would request that you take these one by one in the public hearing when you do this as an action item so the public can address them one by one and everybody can be heard and the concentrated thought can be brought to bear on each item. president olague: thank you. commissioner johns, we would also like to hear from you. i'm sorry i have to leave, but i'll watch the videos and read the minutes. >> thank you very much. commissioner martinez has gone through, i think, in naughts and bolt -- in a nuts and bolts way with some specificity about the things that concerned us. one area that he didn't touch on

in great depth was that there does seem to be as some of you commissioners have pointed out uncertainty in the community about what the role of the historic preservation commission is and the effect on the community of things that the commission does. the entire commission is extremely interested in having the education and the outreach so that if work of the commission does not become a way of being a forum for battles between aidide idealogs and the amendments to articles 10 and 11 and supervisor weiner's

proposals have been a launching pad for tremendous and helpful discussion. unfortunately, our commission did not have the ability to discuss these with supervisor weiner but we're going to in the future. what he has said has a great deal of merit to it in many inthe answers. it must be resign and -- it must be refine and filtered through the process of what we do in the commission to not inadvertently put something unsustainable or unworkable or has consequences that no one intended. and we anticipate going over the

process and having the hearings but they should be action item hearings and our commission with hear and get the best possible result and when the battles of cur, we should be quick to recognize what they are so that we can put them aside and move forward. commissioner miguel: thank you, commissioner. i have a number of speaker cards. yes, we haven't even got therein yet. >> commissioner, sophie hayward and the version that we included in the pact includes the amendments proposed by supervisor weiner which is base and the two ordinances adopted by the h.p.c. in october and november of this year. the department opted to

distribute the comprehensive version and we have distributed the articles approved or adopted by the h.p.c. and i brought hard copies that i can make available. and the presentation today includes an overview of the topics address bid the h.p.c. and supervisor weiner and highlight where is there are differences between the two and we present the department's recommendation that the amendments be adopted with two modify indicatings. one is substantive and one the typographical in nature. the proposed ordinance would significantly amend article 10

and 11 and remove the language and for rezic dagss, re-- designations and appeals and economic hardship and fee waivers, community input for historic district preservations and the secretary of the interior standards. i can address each of the topics positive and provide a summary of the changes proposed by the h.p.c. and/or by supervisor weiner and highlighted the differences on the slides in yellow and where the the department has made a recommendation in green but to date the planning commission has not diskuzed in details the proposed changes to article 10. and there is a difference in the way the h.p.c. and the planning

commission typically reviews legislation. and i just want toing a knowledge that the h.p.c. has gone through line by line each ordinance, article 10 and 11. today my presentation is summary but it is a fairly detailed summary and you may wish to discuss each topic individually or you may want to cut me short. i want you to encourage me if this gets too detailed at any point. the first topic is designation and this is article 10. and the existing article 10 allows five bodies to initiate landmark designation for individual properties and the planning commission and the arts

commission and to issue that resignation and the planning commission and in the exist ing article and may initiate designation of the historic district. >> and as o proposed in the revised article 10 and i apologize there is a typo at section 10.401 and this is reflected in the draft ordinance. and the planning department and property owner or any member of the public may request and the term we used for revision is nominate and that the h.p.c. initiate designation of an individual landmark or of a district. any member of the public can approach the historic preservation commission and request that the designation be initiated. the board of supervisors may initiate designation at any

time. this is for an individual property or historic district. and what is in yellow on the slide is the proposed amendment by supervisor weiner that he would retain the requirements in order to request that the h.p.c. initiate designation and 66% of property owners that agree jointly to the request. and the h.p.c. at any time may initiate the designation of the historic district. commissioner sugaya? commissioner sugaya: since you said we could interrupt along the way. >> yes, go ahead. commissioner sugaya: that is clear, then, in the way the ordinance is set up with respect to supervisor weiner's 66% and as mr. martinez, commissioner martinez pointed out, that is only one way that an initiation can take place. it does not replace the ability of the h.p.c. or the board of

supervisors. >> and that is correct. and this is on page 11 of the draft ordinance of article 10. >> commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: and it appears that the planning commission can no longer initiate, and only as individual citizens? >> the historic preservation and the board of supervisors can initiate. the planning commission can request that the h.p.c. initiate. >> thank you. >> that is reflected in the charter language. >> it is in the charter language. >> there's a fee. >> the second topic is referrals to the board of supervisors and the revised version of article 10 and this is on page 13 of the draft ordinance if the h.p.c. initiates designation and that will go to the board of supervisors with no stop at the