opportunities, please let me know. [laughter] >> thank you. president miguel: thank you. do you have any questions of us? we don't often get planning students here that are interested in hearing, listening and sitting all through this. >> i guess i was personally curious, i'm new to planning actually from a different field and so i wasn't sure how you all are structured and how, if you're appointed or elected or the process. president miguel: commissioners of various commissions are done differently in the city and various planning commissions throughout the state and country are done differently.

in san francisco, the mayor appoints four of the commissioners and they have to be confirmed by a majority of the board of supervisors. the president of the board of supervisors supervisors appoints the other three. these are done on a rotating four-year absolute term and some of us in our first year of serving, some are in second -- a term, rather, and some in the third term of serving. we have, the code does not specify for planning commissioners in san francisco any particular prequalifications, either academic or business. it does for certain of the other commissions. >> so planning background isn't required? president miguel: no, it is taken into consideration obviously in the appointment process and that type of thing,

yes. >> one question that comes up in our class a lot real quick, it just said we wonder about the role of science like particularly when there is a lot of complexity. we talked today, we saw medical science and it came up with health care issues and just in general i guess i'm wondering if that is something that you struggle with and how you, what you tend to rely on when you have to make scientific -- president miguel: it comes to us in two ways. it comes through the work of the department itself and how the department interacts and feeds the information to us, the additional questions we may ask from time to time. we have informational hearings on things many times and then are able to say, yeah, but we need more of. and then also from time to time

where items cover more than one area of subject matter as a city, we may have a joint hearing with rec and park, with the health division, with the redevelopment commission because there are joint concepts with the historic preservation commission where we want to be able to talk among ourselves. >> i would just add to this, the key area science comes up is the environmental impact reports and there is a lot of scientific data within that report and obviously -- well, not obviously, but none of us are scientists in this body so i think in that case, we really rely on experts who look at those sections of the document to point out discrepancies in the science. >> they're heard in a hearing like this? president miguel: correct. >> or in a separate informational briefing? president miguel: yes.

>> thanks very much. commissioner sugaya: in regards to your first question, i'm sorry, while the commission is appointed by the mayor, the mayor appoints me, but only the commission can fire me. >> ok. has that ever happened? >> not yet. >> we can take a vote. >> commissioner moore. commissioner moore: i would like to just clarify for the commission, for the public and the commission an apology to the director. i misinterpreted his expression. he is actually in full support to a candid discussion. sometimes it's hard to always be contrarian, but i appreciate your support in all matters. president miguel: commissioner olague. vice president olague: i do want to mention that having a masochistic streak is part of this in indication you're wondering. president miguel: we encourage to you continue in the field. >> no, no, no. president miguel: is there further general public comment?

none appearing. this meeting is closed in honor of mauricio velo, the marvelous activist. >> thank you. >> go giants!

>> before i call roll for both commissions, let me remind everyone to turn off your cell phone, your pagers, any electronic devices that may sound off during these proceedings. [roll call] >> for the historic

preservation commission -- [roll call] commissioner buckley i'm here but i left my voice at the ball game last night. >> commissioner diane matsuda is absent today. the items on this calendar, there's only one item or item 1 is case 2010, amendment up is planteding code including but not limited to article 1011. >> good morning, commissioners. tara sullivan from the department staff. i had not prepared i guess an entrance speech because i wasn't sure if any of the

commission presidents wanted to speak as to what had been going on. i can happily describe what is in front of both commissions today. and i do have some presentation, and items i do need to discuss, but. >> i would like to say a few words on behalf of the historic preservation commission. president miguel, commissioners, members of the public, before we begin today's hearing on the proposed changes to the san francisco planning code, including articles 10 and 11, affectsing our city's historic resources, on behalf of the historic preservation commission i would like to offer the following comment. we have taken seriously the responsibility in evaluating the language of these two articles as well as the work that's to be done to finish article 11 as well as section

309. we have been deliberate in the review of the cleanup language and insertion language that has been required under prop j. to that end, cleanup language as necessarily included more than just minor sentence structure and name change. with the assistance of the planning staff and the public we have made significant effort to simplify and conform this article to the planning code as a whole. i would like to commend the staff, tara sullivan and tim frye especially, for their hard work and determination to incorporate the hoip's recommendations into article 10 for your consideration today. we would like to thank the public, who through numerous public hearings which we have held have offered their opinions, concerns, and constructive language in shaping what is before you today. because of the intricacies of the way in which article 11 was originally constructed, the work of the commission and the staff has and will take more

time than has been scheduled or the schedule has permitted. we realize the h.p.c.'s work is not yet completed. we beg your indull yens in continuing to complete our work in articles 11 and section 309. while we are aware there is much to do, we will continue to do move to complete our task. i think it's important to note that each of the commissioners have actively participated in this process. we have made, i think, significant strides in conforming the language. and i think it will be better for not only the public to better understand articles 10 and eventually article 11 but also be easier for the planning department to utilize in years to come. so i thank you for the opportunity to make those comments. president miguel: on behalf of the planning commission, i thank you, president chase. and i'm sure the rest of the planning commission greatly

appreciates the work and the hours that the h.p.c. has put in on this as well as you, tara and tim. if i'm hearing you correctly, you're further along, and i think we perhaps are also, on article 10 than article 11. and i would not be adverse to an end result today of continuing anything regarding article 11, because i don't think the work is actually finished at this point. or at least the review of it. and i don't think everyone's onboard. article 10 may be different. it will depend on the discussion today and the testimony and the hearings. but i think, personally, there is a distinct possibility of coming to some agreement there. i also appreciate your remarks regarding the simplification in

my discussions, and i'm sure others with interested parties regarding these two articles and the changeover with the creation of your commission. there has been much confusion. and as we know with any legislation, the legislation itself does not always make clear what it wants the code to do. and the code, having been put together over a period of time, are not always in front of us in the easiest manner to interpret or even just read clearly. so this is an opportunity to do that. and we should take advantage of it and not rush it through. i really appreciate your work on this. >> good morning, again. tara sullivan from the department staff. just to remind the planning commission what is in front of them and why this is in front of them, the department, the planning commission, had

initiated planning code amendments in july for a variety of minor and cleanup and changes for policy and practices to the planning code. you had heard that finally on august 5, and you passed a resolution asking the "the boston globe" -- the board of supervisors to approve these changes. since that time and prior to that august 5 hearing, we also brought the package to the h.p.c. due to the fact that articles 10 and 11 were being rewritten or, i guess, updated to include the h.p.c. since then, as president chase has informed you, they have -- i guess the department as well as h.p.c. has taken a broader, more in-depth look at article 10. and we have been working with the h.p.c. to try and incorporate their changes. they would like to present them to you today. i do want to note that there is

no requirement, that the two commissions agree about what is in front of them, that two separate recommendations will be brought to the board of supervisors. however, the director twells the presidents of both commissions would like to present what the h.p.c. has done, particularly with article 10. so i do want to start with article 10. unlike what we did with the h.p.c. which was going through line by line, i would like to just focus on about five topics that were in your packets in the comparison chart. there are five main topics that i believe are of interest and have changed so what i'm going to do is i'm working off the packet dated october 21. in the first it article 10. and i am going to immediately jump to page 9 and 10. it deals with the nomination and initiation of individual landmark sites and historic

districts. and i just want to remind -- or -- remind everybody that article 10 deals with citywide historic resources and individual landmarks where as article 11 only deals with the downtown. so what the h.p.c. is doing -- the current article 10, i should back up, was written in 1968. it is very confusing, and it leaves a lot to interpretation. so what the h.p.c. tried to do is to bring it up to modern preservation practices. so in that vain, with initiation and nomination of landmarks, they broke it up into two distinct sections. they broke it up into who can ask the h.p.c. or the board of supervisors to go through the landmarking process and then who can actually initiate and start the legal process. so if you start on page 9, on

page 9,.point a comp a is nomination. commissioner miguel, he i will just go through this. so it's a department, a property owner or a member of the public can request that the historic preservation commission initiate designation of a landmark or historic district. any such nomination for initiation shall contain historic, architecturally or historical information and as well as any additional information that the h.p.c. requires. for nominations submitted for landmark sites, which are individual landmarks, the department shall schedule a hearing before the historic preservation commission no hearing before the historic preservation commission no later than 30 days from the date. so essentially the h.p.c. was very concerned. there was a lot of dialogue about the last-minute throwing down of a xerox copy of a

building saying, please initiate designation. there was concern for the department time as well as for the commission's time to actually have a very legitimate, well documented, historic nomination. so that's who can nominate. point b is the initiation. initiation of a landmark site or district can be made by one of the following methods. so for individual landmarks, it's a resolution to initiate by the board of supervisors, a resolution of intent to initiate by the h.p.c., an actual resolution to initiate by the h.p.c., or for individual landmarks, upon a submital ever a complete nomination application to the department pursuant to the section above. and then to caveat that, -- i should back up. so to just actually reiterate that. for an individual landmark, if somebody, a property owner, a neighbor or what not, submits a complete application to the

department so that we have to open up a file, we have to schedule it for the commission, it actually starts the initiation process. it then, in turn, starts a clock of terms of permitting and hearings schedule. as a check for that, so it wouldn't go unbridled and people couldn't just constantly throw in applications, we do have to schedule a hearing in front of the historic preservation commission. and we have to do it no more than 30 days after the date of submital to decide -- the h.p.c. has to decide whether to uphold the initiation of t essentially it's the the landmark site. essentially it's the h.p.c. will be giving a thumb's up or thumb's down to those nomination applications which trigger initiation for individual landmarks only. for historic districts, on the other hand, because they're a larger area the hoip h.p.c. wanted to confine the legal initiation process. so it's only the board of supervisors and only the historic preservation commission has the ability to

formally initiate a historic district. so that is basically the initiation and nomination process as rewritten by the h.p.c. i should note to that, in the existing article 10, there is no provision for the public to initiate or ask to initiate or nominate. it's only the owners, the h.p.c., the board of supervisors essentially. so i don't know if you want to stop at each topic to discuss or have public comment or if you would like -- it's up to you. president miguel: we'll continue. >> ok. the second component that i'd like to raise is moving on to administrative or certificates of appropriateness, which is the entitlement that the h.p.c. has to grant for any building that's in a historic district or an individual landmark for any work, demolition, anything. i'm going to jump to page 19 of

the article 10. proposition j gives the h.p.c. complete authority to approve, disapprove or modify it also allows the department unlike the current article 10, to delegate certain work to staff, to have an administrative, quicker process to occur. article 10 currently does not have that. it basically requires every exterior alteration to go in front of the historic preservation commission. be it one window, be it a nonvisible, rear window or stair, everything has to go in front of them. so the h.p.c. struggled and came up with a process that would allow for administrative certificates of appropriateness to department staff. essentially they outline the process in 19 to 20.

what has occurred is that they will delegate certain work to staff. we will get an application in. we will determine if it meets the work that has been delegated to department staff if so, the department will issue a letter of an admin sert of appropriateness, and it will go out for a 15-day mailing to the owners and any interested parties. at that point and during that 15 days, it's kind of a quasid.r. period. anyone can request that the h.p.c. take a review of that administrative c.f.a., and h.p.c. can still request that as well. so if they do request it, it gets scheduled under the regular hearing procedures. that is basically how it's been set up. so ideally, ordinary maintenance and repairs, u.m.b. work, those are actually specified in this section. and the third is the any other works so delegated. i should note that for article 11 h.p.c. has delegated minor alterations. so it would be something similar to that where they

would delegate the department to ease the application process. so that is new. i just wanted to highlight that. the third issue i just want to bring up is related, also, to the hearings that are in front of the historic preservation commission. i am moving now to 21 and 22. the existing article 10 has notification procedures. and mainly for buildings and historic districts it requires that if a hearing is in front of the h.p.c., that every single property owner in that district get notice of the hearings. that is a very onerous notice. so what the commission did is broke it down to landmark sites and historic districts. we worked with them to kind of streamline it with current department practices, so all the notices that were 10 days are now 20 days. it's going to be -- i mean 20-day mailing to the applicant. and the interested parties.

for landmark, individual landmarks, all owners and occupants within 156 feet of the building. and in historic districts it's mailing to owners and occupants of everybody within 300 feet of the property. so just to reiterate for individual landmarks it's 150 feet and for districts it's 300 feet, owners and occupants. there will be a posted notice on the site, which is not in the code. we eliminated the advertisement, which was currently in the code. and for those projects that have been issued an administrative certificate of appropriateness and there's been a request for the h.p.c. to review that decision, we have a more abbreviated notice because it's, in theory, the second time it's been noticed. it's a 10-day notice for 150 feet so that's the new notification process, two-tiered for admin as well as

regular. so i just wanted to highlight that. that was a big difference in article 10 to what they had proposed. two more topics i'd like to bring up. the one is the appeals of a certificate of appropriateness. i'm on page 28 of article 10. the existing article 10 allows -- excuse me. allows for the owner and basically only the owners to appeal. it kind of -- it somewhat mirrors the existing conditional use appeal process where as the existing code says it has to be subscribed by 20% of all the property owners. in this case instead of the affected, immediately surrounding it, it's 20% of all the owners in the district. prop j created to appeal bodies

for the h.p.c. there is the board of appeals which will hear about 95% of the appeals. and anything else that requires either a mument appeal entitlement -- multiple entitlement is to the board of supervisors so what the h.p.c. did is basically said they wanted to mirror over the current board of appeals processes which allows any interested party in a project to appeal something to the board of appeals, a variance, a d.r., a permit, what not. so within 30 days of their action, c of a can be appealed to the board of appeals or the booed of supervisors. and that's it. it's that simple. so that's all they changed it to. and then the last section i want to talk about is 1014. it's on page 33 to 34. and this is a section that directly relates back to the nomination and initiation process.

this deals with what the city can and cannot do when a building is pending designation. when it has been initiated but not necessarily been formally designated by the board of supervisors. and it's also commonly known of as 180-day clock. basically, currently when a building is initiated by anybody, the city cannot issue any permits for 180 days. the h.p.c. wanted to amend this slightly. they kept the 180-day clock for landmark sites. they said upon initiation, then the 180-day clock starts. for historic zribblingts, due to the complicated nature -- districts, due to the complicated nature as well as creating the case report and getting it through the system, they realized that 180 days may not be sufficient. so they said for a year there will be a hold on permits.

they put explicit provisions in here saying that any property owner can apply to the department and the h.p.c. for a certificate of appropriateness or permit for work while the initiation is pending. so if a property owner does want to put an addition or deck or something on their building, they can request a permit as if therm a landmark. the intent was not to freeze work in this district. they are very cognizant of the impacts to that. so they did add that provision that they can apply to the h.p.c. for a c of a. so those are the essential five points i wanted to make. i also wanted to note that i have a revised motion for the planning commission. the city attorney informed us that you're not really -- if you so choose to amend or incorporate some of these

changes or any of these changes, you are halfing a new resolution not amending the former one. you are asking the department and board of supervisors to incorporate any additional changes. i also want to know, the city attorney has let us know, and this is also for the h.p.c., that the article 10 that you did finalize on october 6 has not been approved to form legally. so there may be some tweaks when the city attorney goes through it. and i will obviously be bringing those back to you. so i'll pass these out. and that concludes my presentation. and i'm here for questions. president miguel: very good, tara. thank you. i'd like to open it up for public comment at this point. is there any public comment?

>> good morning, commissioners. it's nice to see you all up there together this morning. i'm with the san francisco planning and urban research association. i very much appreciate the opportunity to be here today to provide our comments on article 10 planning code. i understand that the h.p.c. is still in the process of reviewing article 11. i emailed to you last night our commenlts -- comments on both articles 10 and 11, but i will limit my comments here just to article 10. and also to say that i appreciate all of the hard work that h.p.c. has done to go through carefully both articles 10 and article 11, and to engage for a perspective. i just want to say thank you for that. there are a couple of things on article 10 that i want to draw some attention to because we